The One Eyed Man Is King
by acetamide
Summary: Leonard McCoy wouldn't have said that he was happy, but he was content with being blind until Jim Kirk came and threw up on him. Eventual K/Mc, slightly AU.
1. part 1 of 4

The last thing that Leonard McCoy really, truly sees is his daughter curled up in bed between himself and Jocelyn. She'd woken him in the middle of the night with her crying and hadn't settled until he'd laid her down on their bed and pulled her into his chest.

It was a hot, clear summer night with a full moon that shone from Joanna's hair as he stroked it, soothing her to sleep as she sucked on her thumb and Jocelyn murmured in dreams too deep to be broken by the earlier shrieks.

He fell asleep like that, legs tangled in sheets and sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat. He didn't know what time it was because he was past being able to see the numbers on the clock, but that didn't matter because it was a Saturday tomorrow and he didn't even have to get up for church.

His eyes drifted shut as they stayed locked on Joanna, and the last thing that Leonard McCoy sees is the silvered outline of her face turned up to his in her sleep.

* * *

When McCoy was twenty-two, the drugs that he'd been taking since birth to counter the hereditary optic neuropathy began to stop working and they stopped working _fast_, first his left eye and then his right. But he didn't tell anyone because he was just months away from finishing his doctorate and he couldn't stand it if he were thrown out. He didn't even tell Jocelyn because they'd only been married a year and Jo was teething and screaming all the time, and he didn't want her to leave him for this stupid reason.

He just upped his dosage and tweaked it a bit and managed just fine, if he ignored the headaches that came and went every day.

He was blind within a month.

* * *

The worst part is that he's only legally blind. He can still tell the difference between light and dark, and he can see basic shapes – he knows if there's something in front of him. But there's no detail at all, just vague outlines that merge if they're not distinct enough. Half of the time he wishes that he just couldn't see a fucking thing because it must be better than wondering all the time exactly what the person talking to him looks like.

Sometimes he considers concocting a drug that'll finish the job; get him all the way there. He never does.

* * *

Jocelyn leaves him a week after Jo's second birthday, and he doesn't blame her. Turns out that for the last few months she'd been seeing Clay Treadway behind his back again and he tries to muster up some sort of righteous anger, but doesn't manage. He's just too tired and Clay isn't blind.

The conversation ends with her carrying their daughter away and a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

No, really, he doesn't blame her. He's not sure at what point she'd realized that he was losing his sight but she says that she'd known for a while, and she's furious. And then she's upset, because she seems to realize just what this all means for their future.

Then she's furious again.

The only thing that he blames her for is not appreciating just what it means for _him_.

* * *

McCoy makes his way back to his parent's house in Atlanta, every step of the journey mapped out and timed so that he gets there safely, and his momma cries loudly in his ear and he feels her tears wet on his cheek as she clutches him to her chest.

His father tells him that he could have at least waited until he'd finished med school.

* * *

It's not easy, but then he never thought it would be.

Nobody wants to hire a blind man who hasn't got any real qualifications, and there doesn't seem to be any hope for him ever finishing med school. Hell, they won't even accept him into a new course of study to start afresh.

He stays with his parents for the summer, the hours merging together into one shimmering, endless day filled with peach cobbler and mint julep and the smell of baked ground. He fills his time by sleeping, drinking, and riding. His old mare's still hanging around and she knows the way home by herself; he doesn't even need to direct her. He might not be able to see her properly but it doesn't matter, because she's warm and familiar and solid between his legs and he knows that she'll get him home safe.

She dies when they're out in town, and he can't see that it's a yew shrub that she's eating and he doesn't know until two hours later when his father finds them and shoots her through the head.

He leaves early next morning when it's light enough that he won't trip over his own feet, and his momma's still in bed and won't beg him to stay.

He heads north-west with his route planned out in his mind, and keeps his head down as he trudges along the road so that nobody sees the blank look in his eyes.

* * *

He travels across the country and stays in rehabilitation centers over the period of two or three years, spending his time living off his disability allowance and wandering down the street with his hand trailing along the wall beside him. He registers with doctors in every state he visits and goes to see someone every month without fail, and every month without fail his eyesight deteriorates a little more.

People seem to have one of two reactions when they find out he's blind – either they pity him, or they want to take advantage of him. On the few occasions that someone he meets at a bar doesn't do either, he follows them back to their place and lets them make him feel like he might actually be worth something.

It's not anonymous sex – McCoy always asks their name and tries to find out as much about them as possible before they go their separate ways – but there's a big difference in knowing all about their married lives and knowing what they look like.

He finally buys a cane when he's in New York, and admitting that he needs it is harder than he ever imagined. There's a whole host of different ones to choose from in all different colors and materials but he goes for the standard white that's more obviously recognized as blind man's cane, a folding one that can be inconspicuous when it needs to be. It's solid and practical in his hands and besides, it's not as if he's going to be able to see it for much longer anyway.

He makes the difficult journey back to Georgia each year for Joanna's birthday, and each year he tells her how much she's grown even though he can't see enough to even tell her apart from the other screaming children. Jocelyn stands in the shadows as he keeps hold of his daughter, running his hands over her face in order to commit her features to memory for another year.

* * *

When he's twenty-seven and can't see a fucking thing, McCoy lucks out with a job in Iowa City. From what he hears when he carefully walks into the free medical clinic, it sounds as if nearly all the unsavory characters in the state have gathered there, so the staff is grateful for his help, even though he's only a receptionist.. And there are million and one voice-activated shortcuts on the computer.

Turns out the staff are pretty accepting and capable and _nice_, just doing their best with a bunch of drunks and addicts and pregnant teenagers and elderly ladies, and that's great. Even though it's not real medicine it's probably the closest he'll ever get.

Sometimes listens to the patients' files and tries to diagnose them just from their records. For each one he gets right, he awards himself a shot of bourbon. He tells himself it's a good sign that he gets drunk more often than he stays sober.

* * *

He gets a flat on Sycamore Street. It's a rough neighborhood but low rent and he's okay with that. Plus his electricity bill is always lower than it used to be since he never turns on the lights.

There's a bar down the road that's quiet enough most nights, so he goes down a few times a week, and within a month the barman knows what he's going to order before he opens his mouth. He only encounters trouble once – some dick starts on him, mocking his lack of sight and generally being in his face. McCoy tells him precisely what he'll do to him if he doesn't back off in medical lingo with words eight syllables long and every time after that his bar stool is free when he walks through the door.

Once a month his disability allowance and meager salary from the clinic comes through, and once a month he pays out his child support to Jocelyn. Somehow, he slowly begins to accumulate some credits to his name.

When he goes to see Jo on her fifth birthday, she doesn't remember who he is.

* * *

Leonard McCoy has been working at the clinic for about eight months and he has the job completely memorized when a young man walks through the sliding doors and immediately throws up on him.

* * *

_**August 2254**_

* * *

The worst thing about this situation is that he hasn't got any clean shirts back at his apartment which means wandering around shirtless for a good half-hour while they're in the wash, and there's a woman across the hall who he swears spies on him. He always gets that feeling, like someone's watching him, and since going blind it's usually right.

"Sorry, man," slurs the guy who's just stumbled through the clinic doors and thrown up all over McCoy. "I need to see someone. I think I've got an STD."

Yeah, and probably more than one, McCoy thinks sourly leaning backwards from the reek of alcohol that's wafting his way over the counter, while his fingers rattle over the keyboard to open a new entry screen.

"Name?"

"James Tiberius Kirk."

"Find a seat."

"Someone's grumpy today."

"Yeah, well someone just threw up on me."

"I'll let you return the favor some day."

McCoy tries not to scowl too much as he listens to Kirk flop down into a seat and start hitting on some poor girl. The computer hums beneath his palms, bringing up all the information on Jim Kirk, ready to be sent through to the next available doctor. Then he gets up and goes straight to the bathroom, stopping only to get a scrub shirt from the storeroom.

As far as first meetings go, it's not really the most auspicious.

* * *

One of the only good things about being blind is that all of his other senses are enhanced, but even that isn't so great. Like when he's lying in his unstable bed at night under a threadbare coverlet and he can hear the water running through the pipes and the couple above having another argument and drunken singing out the window.

Another is that people seem to think that if his eyes don't work, then neither does his brain, and talk to him as if he's simple. Depending on his mood he'll either give them one hell of a lecture and prove just how well his brain does work, or he'll act as they're treating him and they scamper off pretty damn quick, which he knows is immature but he needs to get his kicks somehow.

And those are pretty much the only good things.

* * *

_**September 2254**_

* * *

"I need to see a doctor right now."

"Take a seat, Kirk," McCoy says tiredly because it's approaching midnight and he's been on shift for almost sixteen hours since Olivia's out sick with Andorian shingles – hell knows how she caught them – and he's just a few weeks from hitting twenty-seven and he's stuck in a fucking clinic with no prospects and a daughter who doesn't know him and oh, he's blind.

"I said I need to see one_ right now_," Jim shouts, stalking over to him and this time, he stinks of blood instead of alcohol. "Can't you see I'm fucking injured?"

"No, I can't. Can't you see that I'm fucking blind?!" McCoy snaps, his face twisting into scowl and he knows that he should have more patience and not be so rude but dammit, he's not in the mood for any shit right now especially from a dick like Kirk.

Kirk's silent for a moment and McCoy's glad that at least there's nobody else in the waiting room to stare at them. He hears Kirk sigh and sit down with a faint grunt of pain, and immediately feels bad.

"How long am I going to have to wait?" Kirk asks a little sullenly, and McCoy sighs.

"Mrs Campbell's gone and injured her back again, she'll be in there a while," he pauses, and opens his mouth several times before deciding to actually speak. "What's your injury?" he asks quietly, and it takes Kirk a minute to respond and when he does, his voice has an odd sort of resigned pain.

"Got into a fight," he says tightly, while McCoy stands up to move around the desk. "Broke my nose, some fucker cut my arm open. I just need a regenerator running over me and get some meds and I'll be good to go, so don't worry, I'll be out of your hair soon enough."

"That's not why I asked," McCoy says bluntly and navigates his way across the room to where he can hear Kirk's voice. He mentally awards himself another shot when he manages to get all the way across to him and bump into his leg without colliding with any other objects.

"Hey, what're you doing?" Kirk asks, pulling back a little as McCoy grabs at his shoulder and then moves up to his face, and he scowls as he places a hand either side of Kirk's head.

"Diagnosing you, now sit the fuck still."

He starts with Kirk's nose, ignoring the sharp intake of breath as he presses gently on it and the surrounding area, checking the bones and muscles under firm skin.

"Well it doesn't _feel _like septal hematoma but obviously I can't see it, so don't take my word on it. Definitely broken though."

"I already told you that, and that hurt," Kirk grumbles, but he doesn't pull away. "How'd you know it was me if you can't see anything, anyway?"

"I have a pretty good memory for voices," he admits, then moves on from Kirk's nose to run his fingers over the rest of his face, checking for any more injuries.

"Ow."

"Don't be a wuss. You've got a nasty bump just under your occipital bone and what feels like a minor transverse fracture to your zygomatic bone, but your eye's not damaged. I'm guessing the guy who punched you glanced off your cheek?"

"Are those even real words?"

"Bones are my specialty, kid."

"You been picking things up from the real doctors?" Kirk asks. He sounds playful and McCoy knows that he means no harm but he still bristles at the comment.

"I've got four years of medical training under my belt, and I know more'n that guy putting Mrs Campbell's back straight in that room. Only I can't make any official diagnoses so just make sure you tell me what he says so I can tally it on my chart, okay?" he says with a little more bite than he first intended, and releases Kirk's head.

"You've got a chart?"

"Along a shot of best bourbon for every correct diagnosis. Experiencing any dizziness? Nausea, headache, blurred vision, tiredness?"

"Kinda."

"Concussion. Give me your arm."

Really, he's surprised that Kirk's being so compliant when he's just admitted that he has no qualifications with which to perform these procedures, but if Kirk's not complaining than neither is he. Besides, the satisfaction of getting it right will help make this shitty day that much better.

He nearly starts when he feels Kirk take his hand and guide it to his arm. Forearm, well-defined, he thinks absently as he takes it in one hand and runs his fingers over it with the other. Kirk hisses as he reaches the cut, but he doesn't apologize as he inspects the wound. It's about two inches long and not particularly deep, so at least the regenerators won't have a problem sorting it out.

"Cut to the brachioradialis, not deep enough to really affect the muscle tissue however the recurrent artery was nicked which is why it's bleeding everywhere. Here, hold above your heart like this."

It's at that point that the door opens and he can hear Mrs Campbell thanking Doctor Piper profusely for fixing her spine. He ushers her out of the door and into the darkness and rain before turning back to where McCoy's holding Kirk's arm up in the air.

"Well come on then son, let's get you sorted out."

Kirk stands, pulling his arm from McCoy's grasp, and then claps him on the shoulder before following Piper into the examination room.

* * *

McCoy awards himself eight shots within ten minutes of slumping into the armchair in his flat after a good day's unofficial diagnosing, water dripping from hair. He administers all his relevant meds before listening to the latest medical journals that have been sent to his PADD as outside the rain continues to hammer against the windows and the wind howls through the alleys.

Halfway through a journal on a whole new swath of diseases on Capella that the citizens are refusing to treat, he finds himself wondering is Jim Kirk is out getting wet somewhere. Which is a completely ridiculous train of thought because he hasn't seen the guy in nearly a week, so why the hell is he appearing in his thought processes?

He promptly gets out of his chair, pulls on his jacket, and goes to the nearest bar.

* * *

Turn out to be a bad move, because the last person that he wants to encounter is sat right where McCoy wants to sit, damp and warm and fidgeting, and McCoy pulls back his feeling hand like he's been burnt, and wipes a trickle of rainwater from his neck.

"Jim Kirk," Kirk says brightly, not moving when he's told to, and McCoy feels around for another stool as he glowers and orders a drink.

"I know what you're called, kid. Is there a reason you're sat on my stool?"

"Sorry, didn't realize it had your name on it."

"Most people know to get off it when I walk in."

"Well, I'm not most people."

"No, you're far more annoying than most people," McCoy snaps, downing the drink that's pressed into his hand. "What are you even doing here? I'd know if I'd heard your voice in this place before."

"Yeah, you've got super-hearing, haven't you?" Kirk laughs. "It's been a while since I've been here. Fresh hunting ground. Plus I've been banned from most of the other places in town for another month or so."

"Fresh ground?" McCoy asks, pulling a face. "What the hell for?"

But Kirk's already moving off the stool and away from him, and McCoy can hear him flirting loudly with what he presumes to be a woman or female humanoid or some sort just a little further away. He rolls his eyes and orders another drink - _that _sort of hunting ground.

Only now it's insults that he can hear flying fast and vicious and then the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh accompanied by a ground of pain and a roar of anger. Then the bar erupts into a sort of controlled chaos, centering on Kirk and whoever he's picked his fight with as their brawl turns nasty, glass shattering on the floor.

McCoy finishes off his drink and calmly walks against the flow of human traffic surging to watch the fight. He unfolds his cane from his jeans and makes the familiar and somewhat damp journey back to the clinic, where Patty's halfway through her shift and sounds surprised to see him.

He's armed and ready with a hypospray when Kirk stumbles in ten minutes later and nearly falls flat on the floor.

* * *

After the third time that Kirk staggers into the clinic smelling of alcohol and blood and sex, McCoy goes home exhausted and looks him up on his PADD because he's sure that the name is familiar.

It only takes him five minutes to find the information on the USS Kelvin, written by a Starfleet officer called Pike, and then he's suddenly not so tired any more.

* * *

"Ow."

"Don't be such an infant," McCoy snaps, pulling the bandage a little tighter around Kirk's hand. "It's just a cut. Be glad no tendons got damaged, that's always a risk with the hand."

"You know, your bedside manner is kind of atrocious," Kirk points out, and McCoy snorts.

"I don't believe in mollycoddling," he says flatly, tying off the gauze. "And I reckon most people appreciate being treated like an adult than a child. Rest that hand for a few days then come back for me to check it out."

"Awesome. Thanks Bones," Kirk says cheerfully, jumping up from his chair. "How long til you get your new regenerators?"

"Just another few days. And did you just call me Bones?"

"You said bones were your specialty."

"That doesn't mean I need a nickname."

"Yeah, it does. Good night, Bones!" Kirk calls over his shoulder as he walks away, and McCoy laments his lack of sight because if he tries to throw something at him, he's pretty unlikely to hit the smug bastard.

* * *

Jim Kirk is possibly the most accident-prone person in this solar system, because he seems to be in the clinic at least once a week. This is annoying, because he's usually drunk and likes to try and talk to McCoy, who has a hundred and one better things to do, and calls him by that infernal nickname. But then again, he also allows McCoy to diagnose him by feeling around where the pain's coming from without complaining and sometimes, he'll allow McCoy to treat his minor injuries.

McCoy's been drinking an awful lot recently.

Sometime in between diagnosing Kirk and telling him to fuck off, McCoy realizes that he's been spending an awful lot of time just _talking _to him, more than he's really talked to anyone in several years. He speaks to his coworkers, sure, but he'd never say that he's friends with them. He wouldn't know what to say if he encountered them in a bar somewhere. He still speaks to his parents every few weeks or so, just to let his frantic mother know that he's safe and fine and no, he's not coming home. He speaks to Jocelyn less frequently, to get updates on Jo that he wishes he could receive first-hand.

But he doesn't talk to anyone quite like he talks to Kirk, about anything and everything and nothing, even though he's known him for just a few weeks, and he's slowly coming to actually like the degenerate idiot. He should probably be unsettled, but knowing that he should and yet _not _being worried is an oddly liberating sort of feeling.

* * *

_**October 2254**_

* * *

"So, someone told me a certain grumpy receptionist's birthday is coming up."

"If you're not injured then fuck off, or I'll give you a reason to be here," McCoy growls, his fingers rattling over the keyboard. Kirk completely ignores him.

"I was thinking I should take you out for a drink," he continues, and the desk groans as he leans against it. "I know a great bar. I'm not even banned from it."

"And I know of a hundred places I'd rather be than talking to you right now. How'd you know it was my birthday anyway?"

"Olivia told me. How old are you exactly?"

"Twenty-seven, not that you even care. Now go away or make a donation, I could use the extra credits."

"I care because you look like you could use a few friends right now, and it's not as if I've got anything better to do. Come on, live on the wild side for once."

"Because going to a bar is really cutting edge, isn't it?" McCoy drawls, keying in Mrs Campbell's details as he waits for her to exit the examination room with her knee put back into place. "Besides – I'm a receptionist, I'm busy."

"Not busy on Thursday evening after six. Olivia told me."

"Oh, she fucking did, did she," McCoy snarls and makes a mental note to give that damn woman a talking to when she's next on shift. "Well she told you wrong. I have an appointment at that time with a bottle of bourbon in my apartment."

"You shouldn't be so anti-social. It's bad for you."

"You shouldn't be so goddamn annoying."

"I like to think I'm persistent. I'll pick you up once your shift finishes, okay?"

"You'll be here whether I agree or not, won't you?"

"Of course."

"Fine. But just for one drink."

"Awesome, it's a date. See you then Bones!" Jim says brightly, pushing himself away from the desk and hopping away, and McCoy blinks before his face drops back into its normal scowl.

"It's not a fucking date, and my name isn't Bones!" he yells, but Kirk's already walked out of the door.

* * *

On Thursday morning, McCoy wakes to find two messages on his PADD. One is from his mother, wishing him a happy birthday and asking him to come home. The other is from Jocelyn, with another update on Jo. Turns out she's doing real well in school, one of the brightest in her class, and McCoy comms her back thanking her for the info.

Work is slow and quiet like it always is mid-week, and it's a relief. The people that he works with but doesn't talk to are all pleasant and nice enough but once they've said happy birthday that's kind of it, and they all carry on as normal.

Six o'clock rolls around and true to his word Kirk is waiting for him, lounging just outside the sliding doors. He announces his presence as soon as McCoy steps out of the clinic with a horrifically out-of-tune rendition of an old 20th century birthday tune that makes McCoy cringe and try to sidle away.

"Whoa, no way. I said I was taking you out for a celebratory drink and you're not getting out of it that easy. Come on," he says firmly, taking McCoy by the arm and physically hauling him down the street.

It turns out that the bar Kirk had been raving about is right in the middle of the city and full of young, writhing bodies that press too close and sound too loud. But Kirk drags him to a seat a fair distance from the dancefloor and pushes him into it, disappearing for a few moments only to return with drinks that clink as he sets them down onto the table. He pushes one into McCoy's hand and the glass is cold and slightly damp under his touch, and when he takes a sip it's burning whiskey that eases down his throat. Maybe tonight won't be so bad after all.

"Okay so if this is a date, I'm just going to hope that you're an attractive son of a bitch, so people don't think I'm a complete loser," McCoy says flatly, and Kirk laughs in his ear.

"Oh, I am," he replies easily and McCoy can almost hear the smirk in his voice.

* * *

Leonard McCoy is nearly drunk.

They've been sat in the same places, steadily drinking, for a good few hours, and neither of them are showing any signs of stopping soon. Though to be fair McCoy acknowledges that he's possibly not in the best position to be making any sort of decision about the future.

"…and then Frank decides to sell my dad's car which is like, the last thing of his that we had and I was pissed off about that, so I drove it off a cliff."

McCoy pauses for a second to process this, and then frowns.

"I bet he didn't like that," he says, and Jim grunts opposite him.

"Yeah. He yelled at me for ages about that, and then told me to clean up because I'd been shedding dust everywhere."

"Life's a bitch."

"It really fucking is. What about your home life? Shitty as mine?"

"Just an over-protective mama and a dad who thinks I'm a disappointment, and one hell of an ex-wife."

McCoy's not sure why he doesn't tell Jim about Joanna, but he's sure that there is a reason.

* * *

The cold blast of air sobers McCoy up an awful lot, when they stumble out of the door during the early hours of the next morning. And it's strange because while he's spent the last six hours or so talking about absolutely everything with Jim he feels as though he could keep talking for another six days.

"Do you miss your dad?" he asks as they wander down Hollywood Boulevard, Jim's arm wrapped around his shoulders and his cane stretched out in front of them both.

"I didn't know the man," Jim reminds him, steering them to the left. "He died pretty much as soon as I was born. The only memories I've got are from old PADDs and holos and recordings, but they're none of my own."

"Can't be easy for you."

"I got over it when I hit puberty. We're coming up on your street."

"Good. Wait, aren't we something like fifteen miles from your house?" he asks, his cane hitting what's either a lamppost or someone passed out, and Jim shakes his head slowly.

"Nah, that's my mom. I told you, I'm on Rochester Avenue."

"That's still several miles. And you're still drunk."

"So are you," Jim says petulantly as they round the corner onto Sycamore Street, and McCoy just knows that he's pouting.

"Hardly," he says proudly, patting his stomach. "Got one hell of a liver. And I wasn't accusing you, just making an observation."

"And where was your observation leading, Doctor?" Jim says suggestively as he leans in closer and McCoy pushes him away.

"You stink of beer," he says flatly, coming to a halt where the pavement is cracked and ruptured under his cane and feet. "This is me."

"You do realize that this is the roughest part of the whole city, right?" Jim asks a little skeptically, following him to the front door. McCoy just shrugs.

"I needed somewhere with cheap rent, and it's ideal. I'll let you know if someone tries to mug me, how about that?" he jokes, but Jim takes hold of his upper arms a firm grip, pulling him around.

"I'm serious, Bones. I don't care what it is, if you have any trouble you comm me, okay?" he says sincerely, and McCoy can't help but smile as he folds his cane and sticks it in the back of his jeans.

"Yeah, okay," he agrees, and Jim's grip on his arms lessens.

"Good," he says shortly, clearing his throat. "Well I'd better get going…"

"Wait," McCoy blurts out and he has no idea why but dammit, he hasn't done something impulsive in a long time. "I want to see you," he says quietly, because while he's run his hands over Jim's face to check for bumps and bruises before he's never really taken in what he's mapping out. "Let me see for myself if you're as attractive as you claim to be."

"Bones, you can't…"

"Just stay still," he orders and to his credit, Jim does.

He barely flinches when McCoy's hands take hold of his shoulders, moving up to feel along his neck and up to his jaw. It's strong, defined and rough with a five o'clock shadow. Then he moves his fingers over the rest of his face, feeling out all the pockmarks and dimples that indicate a wide grin when Jim's smiling. An average nose, prominent brow, soft hair. McCoy can't quite put it all together in his head to form a full face but each part by itself is perfect beneath his fingertips. He moves to Jim's lips, memorizing them as he traces them, and Jim's breath is warm over his fingers.

"Okay, maybe you were right," he admits, and his voice isn't quite steady and he hasn't a fucking clue why. He doesn't flinch as Jim's hands to come up to bracket his own face, and for some reason he's not surprised by the kiss when it comes.

He is surprised by just how gentle Jim is – because if there's one thing McCoy's learnt in the two months of knowing him it's that Jim is as fast and destructive and beautiful as a tornado. But right now he's being so slow and careful and so much unlike Jim that it's strange and exhilarating at the same time.

McCoy can't help it – as much as he's telling himself that this is a bad idea his lips part beneath the pressure and Jim's tongue slips between them. He makes a sort of soft noise in the back of his throat as one of Jim's hands slides down to the small of his back and pulls him in closer.

All in all it's not the most brilliant kiss he'd had, but it's _Jim_, and that makes more of a difference than it should. Now he's this close and inhaling him, hands buried in his hair, he can smell the pinewood and alcohol and heat that makes up Jim Kirk, and it's a smell that feels too familiar for reasons he can't work out.

Jim pulls away carefully as though he's worried that McCoy won't stay upright if he moves too fast, and to be fair he might be right. But he doesn't let go, just presses their foreheads together and sighs heavily.

"You're not exactly bad-looking yourself, you know," he says quietly, and suddenly McCoy realizes that they're still on the street outside his apartment and his chest sinks as he remembers why this is a really, really bad idea.

"Jim, I can't do this," he mutters, pulling out of the embrace reluctantly. "I can't deal with this and I don't want to be your latest conquest, okay?"

"That's not what this is about, Bones," Jim says so fucking earnestly, reaching out for him, but he twists away. Just because Jim think it's not about that right now doesn't mean it won't turn out to be, and McCoy's not sure if he can cope with that again.

"Look – I had a good time, but nothing more is going to happen. Ever."

"Bones…"

"Good night, Jim," he says firmly and feels behind himself for the doorknob. "I'll see you around."

He tells himself it's a good thing that he can't see the expression on Jim's face as he closes the door between them.


	2. part 2 of 4

**_November 2254_**

* * *

The thing is, Jim doesn't stop coming and seeing him like McCoy had expected. He's still in the clinic at least once a week though he's injured less and less of the time, but he just acts as though nothing ever happened and they'd parted ways at the top of Sycamore Street instead of outside his door. McCoy's not sure how to handle it.

Jim's taken to following McCoy home from work too sometimes, and McCoy can't bring himself to tell him to go away because he's not sure if that's what he wants anyway. But it only takes him a few weeks to drop into a familiar pattern of Jim being in his apartment three nights a week that's far too comfortable for his own liking.

"You got any pop?" Jim asks as he sticks his head in the fridge, and McCoy moves past him to get two glasses from the dish rack.

"I've got soda, if that's what you mean," he replies flatly, and hears Jim harrumph behind him.

"When in Iowa, speak as Iowans do. We call it pop."

"I don't care where I am, I'm gonna call it soda," McCoy retorts and that really sets Jim off.

And this is how their evenings go, when McCoy isn't working the late shift and not getting self-pitying by himself about his secret daughter.

He tells himself that he doesn't enjoy this and Jim is an unfortunate annoyance, but he doesn't believe it himself.

* * *

_**December 2254**_

* * *

Leonard McCoy would like to think that he's pretty tolerant. He's always been able to put up with a lot of shit, and spending the last few months with Jim Kirk has kind of proved that, because anyone who can put up with Jim for longer than ten minutes without getting a headache or an STD has to have an unending reserve of patience.

Despite this, McCoy hates the Christmas period, and there are a number of reasons why, all of which he has explained to Jim in great detail at some point as they made their way through a crate of beer.

Firstly, there's ice. Blind men can't see ice, and as a result, McCoy tends to fall over a hell of a lot during the winter. Getting to work and having to run a regenerator over his bruised body because he's fallen over three times during the half-hour walk to the clinic is not a good start to the day.

Secondly, there's carol singers. McCoy didn't explain that one at the time, but then he didn't feel as though he really needed to.

Then there's people in general good moods all around him, which makes him feel even grumpier in comparison and people tell him to cheer up and that's something that McCoy really hates, because it's usually accompanied by a bright _it might never happen_! and McCoy snaps at them that it already did, thanks very much, and it wasn't exactly brilliant.

And Christmas is a time for families.

McCoy always sends some small present to Joanna, but he has no idea if Jocelyn passes it on, or tells her who it's from, or just shoves it in with gifts from other family members. McCoy only had two Christmases with Jo but he tries to remember every detail from both on Christmas Eve, and every time the details fade that little bit more.

When Christmas Day rolls around, he answers the door in his bathrobe and scowls at the postman as he signs for the bi-annual package from his mother with his thumbprint, and sits down in his dark, empty apartment to open it. It contains a thick, hand-knitted sweater, two pairs of socks, and a Christmas cake. There's six messages on his PADD – three from family members, one from a guy he was in med school that he's not heard from in five years and probably never will do again, one from Jocelyn, and one from Jim warning him that he'll be coming around at midday and to pack his bags.

He only responds to one of them, and it's to tell Jim to piss off.

McCoy hates Christmas because it reminds him of all the ways that his life has fallen apart.

* * *

It's not long before McCoy realizes that he finds it hard to deny Jim Kirk anything, especially when he's whining and pleading over lunch when all McCoy wants to do is go back to bed and not get up again until it's the next day.

He does not know why he lets himself get talked into things like this. Actually, he probably does, but he doesn't want to think too hard about the strange effect Jim Kirk seems to have on him, let alone face it like a man.

And it's precisely because he won't open his eyes and sort his head out that he's being led up the steps of Jim's old childhood farmhouse on Christmas afternoon, one hand on Jim's shoulder and cane gripped firmly in the other, the harsh wind whipping snow around his wrists. There are a few sets of clothes in the bag on his back along with a gift for Jim's mother, who apparently he'll get along with like a house on fire.

There's a sudden banging directly in front of them and McCoy's grip tightens on Jim's shoulder as he jerks back, until Jim's wrenched completely from his hold and he has a very brief and unreasonable moment of panic.

"What the hell are you doing here, Sam?" Jim asks gruffly as he's hugged fiercely from the sounds of his muffled voice, and McCoy can't help be but curious because Jim had told him it'd just be the four of them. And then he realizes that he must look kinda stupid stood with his head tilted to one side in the middle of a snowstorm.

"You must be Leonard McCoy," says a warm, deep voice and McCoy automatically sticks his hand out. The one that shakes it matches the voice, and he immediately likes Jim's brother.

"And you must be Sam. Jim said you wouldn't be here," he replies, reaching for Jim's shoulder, and Sam clears his throat awkwardly.

"Frank's ended up spending the vacation visiting his own parents, so here we are."

"Good. Mom misses you, you know."

"Yeah, well. Let's get you two inside; you look like you're freezing."

McCoy keeps a firm grasp on Jim's shoulder as they go through the front door. As soon as he steps inside he can hear the crackling of the old wood fire, along with female chattering and the clanging of pots and pans. There's a distinct scent of pinewood and chestnuts and _Jim_, which is of course ridiculous because it's Jim that smells of this house and not the other way around.

"They won't let me into the kitchen," Sam explains, and McCoy guesses that it must be his wife in the kitchen with Winona. Aurelan, he recalls, and she's eight months pregnant with their second child. Which means that their first son, Peter, must be close by. "Leonard, I'll show you to your room while Jim says hi to Mom."

"Yeah, you go on ahead," Jim says absently as he wanders off, and McCoy feels suddenly stranded in this strange house with a man he's never met before. And that's odd in itself because he spent four fucking years wandering the streets of cities he can't remember the name of talking to anyone who'd listen, so why the hell is he bothered now.

"We've had to put you in Jim's old room," Sam tells him as they climb the wooden stairs, McCoy's bag slung over Sam's shoulder and his folding cane stuck into the back of his jeans. "Sorry about that. This old farmhouse isn't really the most spacious of places."

"I grew up on a farm near Atlanta, I'm used to it," McCoy admits, one hand trailing along the wall as they walk down the landing, and Sam laughs.

"Georgia? I thought I recognized that twang. You still got the farm?"

"My parents live there, but I don't really talk to them much anymore."

"Shame. Parents can give you a lot of shit but one day, you'll wake up and miss 'em like hell. Here – your bed's to your right under the window, wardrobe opposite. Bathroom's straight across on the landing."

"Thanks," McCoy says, walking further into the room and inhaling as Sam dumps his bag on the bed. "I guess you'd know firsthand about missing your parents."

"You'd be right," Sam says with what sounds like a twisted half-smile. "Sometimes, I don't know if Jim's jealous of me. I've got a few memories of Dad – nothing really concrete, just vague sort of feelings – but it's more than he's got. But then if he doesn't know anything about Dad then he doesn't know what he's missing, so sometimes he's grateful. I never really know with him."

"I came to the same conclusion a few months ago."

Sam's saved from replying as Jim himself bounds into the room, his footsteps heavy on the paneled flooring and comes to clap McCoy on the shoulder.

"You do realize I'm on the couch because you get my bed," he says and manages to make himself sound hurt and amused at the same time, which is something of a feat. McCoy shrugs and unfolds his cane, striding across the room towards the door.

"I'm your guest. Now introduce me to your mother like the gentleman I am," he says blandly, navigating his way down the landing to the top of the stairs, and he hears Sam laugh as Jim grumbles but ultimately follows him down the stairs.

* * *

The Kirk ladies make one hell of a Christmas dinner, even by McCoy's standards. He can tell that none of it has seen a replicator.

He's quiet as Jim loads his plate for him, content just to listen to the familiar bickering around him and the occasional outburst from Peter, who's just started talking in half-coherent sentences. McCoy can vividly remember his first conversation with Joanna and it makes his heart ache, because now she doesn't really know who he is and every time he talks to her it's stilted and awkward.

"Fried corn?" Jim asks suddenly and McCoy blinks once or twice before shaking his head slowly.

"I'm good, thanks."

"So, Leonard," Winona says over the babble coming from Peter's mouth and the near-constant banter between Jim and Sam. "Jim tells us you work in a free clinic in Iowa City."

McCoy nods as he pokes around his plate to work out where Jim's put each bit of food.

"Yes ma'am, that's right. Been working there coming on a year now, but I'm hoping to move on soon enough. It's not the best paying job, we've got to rely on donations for our salaries."

"Well I think it's a noble pursuit," Aurelan adds as McCoy finds the ham and cuts into it. "I swear, it's about time we made all healthcare on the planet free. We need all the volunteers we can get."

"Uh no, ma'am, I ain't a doctor," McCoy says a little uncomfortably. "I'm just the receptionist."

"But you did all your medical training and you know more than half the doctors in that place, you said so yourself," Jim says sharply, and McCoy can hear the scowl on his face.

"Which counts for jack without a license to practice," he points out, and then sighs. "My sight went just weeks before I was gonna sit my exams. If I'd managed to hang on for another month I'd have a doctorate but I don't, and I'm over it."

"That's some tough shit, man," Sam grunts, and McCoy has to agree as he listens to the unmistakable sound of Aurelan smacking her husband and hissing about his language.

* * *

The wind's dropped down by the time they set out for a walk. Now the air just smells crisp and cold. It's still snowing but Jim had made McCoy wrap up in about twenty layers of clothing before allowing him to leave the house – including a hat that he suspects might be plaid – so he's not feeling it.

Jim and Sam are messing around in front and behind them, whooping and hollering as they throw snowballs at each other. From the sounds of it, Aurelan's helping Peter try and join in but he's not getting quite as much action as he wants. It's strange, McCoy thinks – whenever they'd previously talked about Jim's home life he'd always been almost bitter about it. Only now they're here it's like he's regressed back to childhood and McCoy's never heard him happier. But then maybe that's more to do with the absence of Frank than anything else.

"You look deep in thought," Winona says and McCoy blinks in surprise, a habit that he's yet to cure himself of. He clears his throat and she adjusts her grip on his elbow, directing him around a log while their feet crunch through the snow. He knows that she's holding onto him to help him walk without falling over but he knows that she knows that he's pretending that he's just being a gentleman and helping _her_.

"Just thinking about how Jim is a complete man-child," he says flatly, and she laughs.

"He never really did achieve full maturity. Fiercest mind I've known in a while, but still mentally five."

"You're saying he's actually got a brain under that permanently bruised face?"

"You sound so surprised," Winona says drily as they start up a hill, and McCoy is, if he's honest. "Jim was the brightest boy at school, always was. He couldn't be bothered in class and hell, I had my fair share of uncomfortable parent-teacher conferences but when the tests came he was always on top. We made him go see a psychologist once, try and work out why he acted like he did. She told us he was a genius."

"Well I never," McCoy murmurs, his whole opinion of Jim Kirk turned abruptly on its head. "Why in God's name would a certified genius spend his time going to bars and getting beat up?"

"I've been asking myself that for nearly five years, Leonard. Let me know if you ever work it out."

McCoy nods slowly, slowing his pace as he feels the ground become slippery beneath his feet, and Winona accommodates him in the easy way that she seems to go about everything. And what she's just told him is proof in fact that he did the right thing in leaving Jo in Jocelyn and Clay's care because what if she'd turned out an intelligent delinquent like Jim? Hell, what if he ended up being the _reason _she ended up like that?

"You keep doing that," Winona says; he catches himself before blinking this time. "You just drift off in your own little world."

"The one in my head is the only one I can see. And I was just thinking about how Jim's too hard to work out, so I might not bother trying."

"You said you've got some psychology training, I reckon you'll manage," she tells him, and pauses before continuing. "I see the way he looks at you, you know."

"I don't know what you mean."

"No, of course you don't," she says softly, tugging him gently to the right. "He cares an awful lot about you. He's always watching you, making sure you're not missing something, keeping an eye on you."

"I don't need protecting," McCoy snaps, and she taps him lightly on the wrist.

"That's not what I meant, Leonard. There's something in his eyes that I'm not used to seeing with him. He looks at you like you're the most amazing thing to ever happen to him and he still can't quite work out why you'd want to be around him."

"You're kidding, right? He's insecure about why I want to be friends with _him_?"

Winona chuckles and stops while turning him around. There's more of a breeze up here, and he tugs his scarf a little tighter around his neck, and he reckons they must have reached the top of the hill that they'd been aiming for.

"All I'm saying is, he cares about you more than you might think. And if I'm right, it's not one-sided," she murmurs, and McCoy feels his chest tighten and his face drop into a glower.

"My marriage might not have ended in tears but that hurt's not something I'm likely to forget any time soon, and nobody deserves the problems that come with being with a man who can't see," McCoy replies tightly, listening to the sounds of the others coming up to the top of the hill. "I have no intention of repeating that with your son or anyone else with all due respect, ma'am."

"I'll bear that in mind," she says and dammit she sounds amused. McCoy's about to reply but he's cut off by a loose ball of snow smacking into the side of his head, forcing snow into his eyes and mouth. He spits it out and splutters, releasing Winona to rub at his eyes, cursing all the way as Jim jogs up to him laughing his ass off.

"You can't hit a goddamn blind man with a snowball!" McCoy yells, but there's no real anger in his voice and Jim knows it.

"Your face was the best," he gasps, still cackling. "Here."

McCoy bats away his hands as Jim tries to help brush the snow from his face and neck, scowling all the time and just _knowing _that Winona is smirking at him.

"I'm blind, not an invalid," he grumbles, but Jim carries on cheerfully.

"It's a great view from the top of this hill, you know. You can see right over to the Terrell farm twenty miles away, and the valley beyond them down at Muscatine."

"I'm sure it's brilliant."

"Yeah, it kinda is," Jim says and he's standing so close that McCoy can feel him shrug. He reaches into one of his many pockets and pulls out a small hipflask, unscrewing the top and taking a swig. The burn warms his throat and continues down into his stomach, and he pushes it into Jim's chest as an offering.

"You're such a fucking alcoholic," Jim snorts, but takes it anyway.

"You boys ready to head back down again?" Winona calls from where she's apparently moved away from them, and nods in her direction.

"Come on, Bones," Jim laughs as he slings an arm around McCoy's shoulders, leading him back down the hill. "I've got a feeling there's some specially-made peach cobbler and sweet tea waiting for you in the pantry when we get home."

If there's one thing that McCoy won't say no to, it's peach cobbler and sweet tea.

* * *

They end up sat in the den, fire blazing on the hearth as the snow continues to fall outside. After devouring more peach cobbler than he'd though possible after the enormous Christmas dinner, McCoy's body decides that it's had enough and he ends up dozing off at one end of a ridiculously comfortable couch that seems to be designed not to let you get back up again.

He's jolted awake again what seems like minutes later but he knows is a fair while by Peter shrieking on the floor, and he comes back into consciousness with a snort and a jerk.

"Good nap, old man?" Jim asks with a laugh from down near his feet, and McCoy scowls in his direction as he settles himself and listens to the crackle of the fire.

"Would have been better if it had been longer."

"We were just talking about Sam and Aurelan's new posting on Deneva," Winona says from across the room, and McCoy feels a mug of hot cocoa being pushed into his hand. "They've got a job working with neural parasites."

"Rather you than me. You'd never get me up in space," McCoy yawns, and there's a huff and the couch beside him sinks as Jim flops down onto it.

"You should see him, Sam," he says and he sounds like he's grinning. "He goes gray just looking at a shuttle, and he's even worse when he's actually inside it."

"It's called aviaphobia, you idiot," McCoy retorts and kicks him in what he hopes is his shin, and Jim just kicks him back.

"You didn't bring the bike?" Sam asks from somewhere near the floor, and McCoy wonders briefly if it's just a habit of Kirk men to lounge around on the ground, until he realizes that they've probably been playing with Peter.

"Nah, she's getting some work done. I'm picking her up when we get back."

"Sweetie, do you want to take Peter up? It's nearly half past eight, he's had a long day."

"I'll do it!" Jim offers before Sam can respond, and jumps from the couch to descend upon the toddler making Starship noises, and from Peter's giggling, McCoy can guess that Jim has swept him high up above his head.

"Don't you drop him, James Tiberius!" Winona warns from across the room, but he ignores her and the sound of phasers and giggling leave the room pretty quickly along with Jim, who's still moving the same frantic energy that's kept him going all day.

"Tell me about these neural parasites, then," McCoy says to any of the Kirks that want to answer as he listens to Jim running up the wooden stairs.

"There's been a string of infestations over the last two hundred years, spanning the entire galaxy – it's taken so long to link them together, and some researchers were lucky enough to isolate one of the parasites on a ship that had been heading to Deneva from Ingraham B. They've discovered that it's vulnerable to ultra-violet light so they can contain it, we're just going to do further studies on it," Aurelan explains, and McCoy turns the information over in his head before answering.

"Is this the Levinius parasite?" he asks, mentally running through his neurology lectures from four years ago, and Sam grunts in agreement.

"They were lucky to discover the parasite on board. If it had gotten to Deneva and spread, the whole planet would have been killed."

"And from what I remember, it wasn't the nicest way to go either."

"Not by any stretch of the imagination."

McCoy takes a sip of his cocoa and thinks of the reports of those that had been infected by the Levinius parasite – the loss of control as the parasite took command, the overwhelming pain, and the slow slide into insanity before death.

Disease and danger. There is no way in hell that he is ever going into space.

* * *

McCoy sleeps fitfully that night.

He can't help but keep going over what Winona said in his mind. She seems so convinced that Jim does actually want to be _with _him, and that he feels the same way – but he doesn't know himself so how the hell can she? But then Jim invited him to his own family home for Christmas and he went with it, and surely he wouldn't be here if he didn't care at all about Jim.

So maybe he's deluding himself. He's managed to convince himself that he doesn't want a relationship, least of all with someone who's as likely to up and leave as stay, but maybe that is what he wants in the end. It's been coming up five years since the divorce so he can't keep blaming it on that, anyway.

He wakes at one point to the sound of sparrows and finches out the window and someone moving around the room, and he rolls over before yawning widely.

"Jim?" he asks as the yawn tapers off, and Jim starts slightly at the sound of McCoy's voice before walking over to the bed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I couldn't sleep, thought I'd come see if there was any of my old PADDs to read. You know, kids' stories and stuff," Jim says quietly, leaning his hip against the bed, and McCoy pushes himself up into a sitting position to make room for him.

"I was just dozing anyway, can't sleep properly either. What time is it?"

"About half past two. Every else is fast asleep," Jim says as he scoots under the covers at the opposite end of the bed, his cold feet pressing against McCoy's knee. "I'm glad Frank's not here."

"Because it meant Sam came?"

"Yeah. He was always a lot harder on Sam than me," Jim explains, squirming into a more comfortable position. "Maybe it was because I kept my head down and worked hard I don't know, but Sam got the worst of it."

"About that. Your mama tells me you're a genius. Certified," he points out and Jim squirms again, but this time McCoy knows it's more about feeling awkward than uncomfortable.

"She likes to tell that story."

"And why wouldn't she? Jesus Jim, if you're so fucking intelligent then why the hell are you still knocking around bars, just staying on this side of the law?"

"I've done time, actually," Jim tells him and sounds almost proud, and that's frustrating as anything.

"You're wasting your life, kid."

"As if there's anything else for me to do," Jim retorts, poking at McCoy's thigh with his slowly-warming toes. "I'm not cut out for school."

"You don't even have a job."

"Oh don't start Bones, I've got enough with Mom on my case and I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, I'll stop," McCoy says agreeably, holding his hands up placatingly. Jim leans closer against his legs, and McCoy retaliates by kicking him in the knee. "So what do you want to talk about?"

Turns out that now McCoy _knows _about Jim's extraordinary mind it's perfectly acceptable for him to leap straight into deep conversations that McCoy can barely follow, involving black holes and warp theory and inter-planetary transportation and more technical words than he cares to be hearing at this time of the morning. But he listens anyway.

He's been sitting listening to Jim rave enthusiastically about travelling across the galaxies one day when Sam bursts into the room to frantically tell them Aurelan's water just broke.

* * *

Four hours and a few damp towels later, McCoy sits back on his haunches as a baby's cry pierces through the morning air and Jim's hand tightens on his shoulder He wonders if it would be bad form to get himself a mint julep.

"Good job, Bones. He's beautiful."

"Well thank god for that," McCoy says drily, and sighs heavily as he clambers off the bed, moving up to where Aurelan is cradling her new son against her chest and cooing at him. "You mind if I give him a quick once-over, ma'am?"

Aurelan holds onto him for a second longer before handing him over, and McCoy checks him over as quickly as he can. The kid's stopped crying at least and is just snuffling at him, and McCoy is reminded again so strongly of Joanna that he has to hand the boy back.

"Seems perfectly healthy, but you ought to take him to the nearest qualified doctor anyway. You got any idea what you want to call him?" he asks, and feels Jim come to stand by him.

"Alexander," Sam says immediately from where he's sprawled on the bed beside his wife. "After Aurelan's father."

"Alexander Leonard," Aurelan adds, and McCoy starts.

"Well, I don't really think…" he begins awkwardly, but Jim just claps a hand down on his shoulder.

"It's a good name. Congratulations."

McCoy swallows, and repeats the sentiment.

* * *

They leave late on the twenty-seventh, despite Jim's whining that he wants to stay longer. McCoy is needed back at the clinic – he's been warned that it'll be packed on New Year's Eve – and Jim simply won't allow him to make the journey back alone. They're making their way through the pork tenderloin sandwiches that Winona had insisted on packing them up with as the shuttle approached the City, and Jim finally decides to speak.

"What did you think of her then? Mom?" he asks around a mouthful, and McCoy swallows before answering.

"She's one nosy lady," he says without hesitation, and Jim laughs.

* * *

McCoy shouldn't be surprised, really, that he spends New Year's Eve with Jim. It seems that all he does nowadays is work and hang around with him, and he's actually kind of okay with that. It certainly beats the sad existence that he was living before.

Thing is, he'd kind of expected to spend the night in either his own local bar or Jim's favorite in town, and not hurtling down the interstate at nearly one hundred and ten fucking miles an hour.

"Holy fucking shit!" McCoy shouts over the sound of the engine and the wind in his ears, and he can hear Jim laughing in front of him. They turn a corner sharply, the bike angling right down into the road to round the bend and McCoy clutches tighter at Jim, one hand wrapped around onto his opposite hip and the other curled against his ribcage.

When they finally stop, Jim helps him off the bike and leads him by the hand up a long hill that reminds him strongly of their Christmas Day walk in Riverside. He's even brought his hipflask along with him.

"I love coming up here on New Year's Eve," Jim says a little breathlessly as they reach the top and he releases McCoy's hand. "The city just lights up. It's even better than the view down to Muscatine."

"I'm sure it is," McCoy says agreeably, because it's not as if he knows any better.

They lay back on the cool grass and McCoy drinks bourbon while Jim takes swigs of beer, coming up with resolutions that are discarded as soon as they're thought of and a few that almost stick.

"How about you promise not to get into any more stupid bar fights?" McCoy suggests, nudging Jim's shoulder with his own, and feels the shrug that acts as an answer. "If you do that, then I'll stop drinking so much."

"Nothing like a good bribe."

"That an agreement?"

"Yeah, why not," Jim sighs, and shifts. "Hey. It's started."

McCoy's about to ask him what he's talking about but then he _feels _it, the boom and rumble that shakes through his chest and ends in a crackle and hiss, and he can't help but grin as he hears another firework being launched in the distance.

"I'd forgotten how goddamn loud those things are."

"Not as good as being able to see them, but I thought you might appreciate it," Jim says in between explosions that rattle through their bodies.

"I'm usually inside where it's buffered so much I can't hear it."

Jim doesn't reply and McCoy decides that he must not have heard him over the resounding booms. But then suddenly Jim's lips are on his, familiar and warm and so painfully gently, and he blinks out of habit. And as quickly as the kiss started it's ended, and McCoy is left completely non-plussed.

"I know, I know," Jim says, moving away. "It was just a New Year's kiss, a one-off. Won't happen again, I promise."

McCoy swallows hard and nods, and hopes Jim doesn't realize that he isn't complaining.

* * *

_**January 2255**_

* * *

Jim disappears for several weeks at the beginning of the year without any prior word, and after a few days McCoy finds himself comming Winona to see if she knows where the hell he's disappeared to.

She laughs and tells him that he's gone off-planet to Deneva go see Sam, Aurelan and the kids and he'll be back in February, and he should stop worrying and drinking or he'll damage either himself or the carpet. McCoy tries not to be offended that Jim didn't bother to tell him that he was leaving, and returns to the same repetitive routine that he had slipped into for eight months previously.

After one particularly tough day with barely a break, he comes home to grab his PADD and dictate a message to Winona, just one sentence. He doesn't have to explain it, because he knows that she knows _exactly _what he means.

He pours the remainder of his sweet tea down the sink before retiring to his bed. Then he brings himself off imagining someone else's bruised hand around his cock, and goes to sleep.

* * *

The thing is, he hadn't realized just how dull and monotonous his life had become before Jim Kirk strolled in and threw up on him. He'd get up on a morning, go to work, come home from work and read medical journals, and then go to bed. On a Saturday he'd walk into town and buy the week's groceries, and then head to the bar on the evening and make small talk with the other regular patrons. On Sunday morning he'd go to the gym for a few hours, then come home and delete the message from his mother and listen carefully to his update from Jocelyn, storing it on a PADD set aside that was full of information on Joanna. Sometimes, Jocelyn would record Jo saying something and send that along too, and McCoy would listen to it repeatedly and fall asleep with his daughter's voice surrounding him.

And then he'd wake up. And it would be Monday again.

* * *

He's not even felt attracted to anyone since he lost his sight completely and stopped being able to tell male from female just by sight. Which means that he's not just wanting to get into Jim's pants for his looks, which to be fair are pretty fantastic from what he'd felt that fateful night on his birthday. It means he actually enjoys spending time with him and likes him for his personality, which can't be right but there you go. And while Jim's made it quite clear that he'd like at some point to get into McCoy's pants, he seems perfectly happy at the moment to just be a really good, really annoying friend. And it's confusing.

McCoy's fucked.

* * *


	3. part 3 of 4

**_February 2255_**

_  


* * *

  
_

It's been nearly six months since he met Jim Kirk and he's surprised that their first argument didn't happen earlier, if he's completely honest.

"I'm going to Georgia for a few days," McCoy says as soon as Jim walks through his front door, pausing in the kitchen to put his beers in the fridge before wandering through to find him.

"Going to see your parents?" he guesses, and McCoy nearly doesn't answer him because he's still not happy about being left out of the loop last time.

"Nope, my daughter. I'm due a visit," he says anyway as he packs up his clothes, and he'll realize later that it was that sentence that was the catalyst for the argument.

"You never told me you had a daughter," Jim says quietly, and there's an edge to his voice that McCoy hears but pays no attention to as he sifts through the drawer, checking the label of each item of clothing carefully before packing it in his bag. He reckons he'll be away three days, max, but it never hurts to pack a spare set.

"You never asked," he points out, going into the bathroom to put together his toilet bag. "It's not important anyway."

"Me not asking and you deciding not to tell me aren't the same thing."

"Like how you decided not to tell me that you were a certified genius?"

"Kinda different situations, Bones! And the hell it's not important," Jim snaps, following him through, and McCoy can feel his proximity even if they're not actually touching. "How old is she?"

"Six today. I see her every year on her birthday."

"You _what_?"

And there's that edge to his voice again, and McCoy realizes that it's a dangerous tone and frowns as he pushes past Jim back into his bedroom.

"I just said, I go down every year to see her on her birthday."

"And you don't see a problem with that?"

"No, why, do you?"

"Of course!" Jim explodes, his voice raising and McCoy can hear that he's pacing around the room. "You can't just abandon your kid like that!"

"Jocelyn remarried a few months after our divorce got finalized, it's not as if Jo doesn't have a father figure in her life," he explains, zipping up his bag, when Jim grabs his arm and pulls him around.

"So you think it's okay for her to grow up not knowing her real father? Step-dads aren't a substitute, Bones, you can't do that to your kid. She deserves to get to know you!"

"Don't make this about you," McCoy warns, pulling away, and Jim's answer comes as a snort of derision. "You think this is easy for me, knowing my little girl is being raised by someone else? Well it's not, but Jocelyn and I decided it was the best thing for her. As far as Jo knows, I'm just a distant relative. She thinks Clay is her daddy."

"Because that's not fucked up at all."

"Well what do you want me to say to her, Jim? That actually I'm her daddy and I left her mom because I couldn't take care of myself, let alone her? That her mom was sleeping with Clay when I needed her most? What do you want me to do?"

"And how will you explain it when she _does_ find out? Because believe me, she will, and she'll hate you for it."

"Then she'll hate me. But I'm not going to force myself into her life when it'll just make things a helluva lot more complicated for everyone involved."

"Everyone, or just you?" Jim spits furiously, and McCoy's mouth drops open in surprise. "You're being a selfish dick about this one, you know. Yeah, I get that your life's not all peaches and cream but your fucking daughter shouldn't have to get the short straw because of it."

"This isn't any of your goddamn business, Jim. It's not as if I'm obliged to tell you a single goddamn thing about my life, so stop acting like a martyr," McCoy says with a warning tone and there's a sudden loud noise that sounds suspiciously like Jim's just smacked the wall.

"I don't _believe_ you," he says, sounding shocked, and McCoy just glowers at him.

"Well you'd better start believing it soon because I'm leaving for Georgia in an hour whether you like it or not. I'll see you in a few days."

Luckily Jim hears the last phrase for the dismissal that it is, and slams the door as he stamps furiously from the room. McCoy finishes packing up his back carefully and slowly, and then sits down at his desk with a sigh.

There's a message on his PADD from Winona Kirk. It's as short as his own message to her, just one line long.

_I just knew._

It's not very helpful.

* * *

An hour later he straps himself into the death trap they call a shuttle that'll take him to his little girl, wondering if maybe Jim's right about this, and wishes that he'd brought his hipflask with him, New Year's resolution be damned. He presses himself further into the seat and tries not to think of the hundred ways that it could kill him, and fails miserably.

Someone sits down next to him with a huff, and then there's a hand laid on his arm. He jerks away and turns with a glare, ready to snap at the person grabbing him, but the hand stays on his arm and the grip is firm, and McCoy realizes that he recognizes that curl of fingers.

"If you think I'm going to let you go to Georgia all by yourself then you're kind of an idiot," Jim says flatly, releasing his arm and settling more in his seat and ignoring the fact that McCoy has made this awkward journey by himself several times before. "So six, huh? What's she into?"

"Horses," McCoy grunts, immediately missing the warm that had seeped through to the skin on his arm in those scant few seconds. "And other girly things, I reckon. She's a smart kid though, does well in school."

"Takes after her daddy?"

"One of them, anyway. Not sure which."

"And she's not going to go blind, is she?"

"No," McCoy sighs, settling his head back against the rest. "No, what I've got is mitochondrial – only females can pass it on. She's perfectly safe."

"I bet you love your mom for that then."

"Actually, I was kinda lucky because we knew it ran in the family – I've got uncles. So when I was born they started me on meds to suppress the effect of the genes, but they were experimental, no guarantee they'd succeed. They stopped working when I about twenty-two."

"At least you weren't blind from birth," Jim points out as McCoy hears the shuttle doors close and the engines rumble to life, and the familiar spikes of nausea and low-level fear rise through his stomach.

"That's not much of a consolation, kid."

* * *

This time Jo does recognize him but it's still a kick to the chest to hear her calling Clay 'daddy' when that's what he is, dammit. Only he's not. He's just the uncle from Iowa who only visits once a year on Jo's birthday.

Jocelyn is enamored with Jim from the moment she notices him and Jim turns his charm up to full and has her wrapped around his little finger within ten minutes of arriving. The birthday party's already in full swing and there's young children running screaming all through the old house that he used to live in with his own little family.

McCoy manages polite conversation with Clay and avoids Jocelyn's parents, and when he manages to finds Jim, the man's surrounded by kids and having the time of his life and from the sounds of it, so are they. He hopes that Jo and Jim get on okay, even though he doesn't know why.

In the end he escapes and hides in the pantry and drinks a liter of sweet tea because dealing with Jim is one thing, here there's what feels like hundred of small children that need entertaining and are still _screaming_ louder than is probably necessary. Jeez, if he'd stuck around there'd be no chance that Jo would be having a birthday party in their own house with what's got to be her whole class, if not school. But then Jocelyn and her sister and Clay seem to be managing fine, great now that Jim's helping out.

It should surprise him that Jim's so good with kids but because it's Jim, it doesn't.

* * *

He's just drifting off to sleep in one of the guest rooms once everyone's gone home full of cake when the door opens and the floorboards creak, and McCoy doesn't bother calling out because there's only one person who'd bother him like this, really.

Jim pads quietly across to the bed and climbs in awkwardly – it's a small bed barely made for one but they make it fit, pushing and pulling until McCoy's cheek is resting on the steady beat of Jim's heart and their limbs are tangled together beneath the sheets.

"You worn out, old man?" Jim murmurs as his hand runs in gentle motions up and down McCoy's back, his skin almost hot to touch, lips moving against McCoy's hair. McCoy pokes him in the ribs and he squirms, but doesn't pull away.

"I don't envy anyone raising a kid," he admits, listening to the sounds of the house all around them. "It can't be the easiest of jobs."

"Some people just aren't cut out for kids – some people are awesome at it."

"Like you, you mean."

"That's not what I said."

"You were, though. Thanks. For coming, and helping out. I reckon Jo likes you – not that I should be surprised."

Jim goes silent for a moment before sighing heavily, shifting to the side to pull McCoy tighter into his body.

"She's beautiful, Bones," Jim suddenly whispers as he curls around him in the rickety single bed. "She's got hair the same color as yours but you can see it's going to go kind of red, like Jocelyn's. And her eyes are this really bright green and she's covered in freckles, all over her face and arms, and she looks really fragile but I saw her playing with some of the boys, she's a sturdy little thing."

"I wish I could see her," McCoy mumbles, pushing his face into Jim's neck, and feels those strong arms tighten around him.

"I know you do," Jim says into the darkness, and they fall asleep wrapped in each other and Georgian warmth.

* * *

Leonard McCoy wakes in the morning with Jim's hair tickling his nose and his arm wrapped around a strong torso, and _knows_.

He brushes his lips against the back of Jim's neck, stroking down his chest, and Jim murmurs sleepily and turns slightly in his embrace.

"Bones?" he rasps, still half-asleep, and McCoy smiles as he presses a kiss to the patch of skin just behind his ear.

It's just a simple progression really to move the hand that's rubbing gentle circles on Jim's stomach down to dip under the waistband of Jim's shorts, but Jim himself doesn't seem to think so and abruptly rolls onto his back.

"Bones, I –"

McCoy stops him from talking by leaning down and kissing him, only he misjudges and hits his nose instead but quickly readjusts. Jim reacts immediately, grabbing at his shoulders and pulling him in close, kissing back with equal fervor, but then pulls away abruptly.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asks and McCoy tilts his head to one side.

"I wouldn't be complaining if I were you," he rumbles, tugging at Jim's shorts as he straddles him and palms his half-hard cock through the thin cotton.

That seems to be all the persuasion that Jim needs because he's suddenly pushing up into McCoy's touch at the same time as pulling McCoy down against him, grinding their cocks together and Jesus fucking Christ it's been too long.

It happens pretty fast after that – just Jim's lips and hands all over his body and then in his own shorts, both of them pushing and pulling and rocking and gasping in time with one another as they roll against the sheets. It's messy and frantic but it's perfect, and as McCoy kisses Jim thoroughly he can feel his body tensing as Jim's wrist twists, thumb flicking over the head and mouth pressing hot kisses to his neck and then he's coming like a teenager. But Jim's grunting and gasping and spasming beneath him so he doesn't feel quite as embarrassed.

Once his body is back to behaving itself he rolls to the side, but stays firmly attached to Jim's chest, and tries to ignore the fact that they're both sticky in their underwear as he fans his hand out over Jim's heart.

"Just so we're clear, I'm _not_ complaining," Jim assures him, sounding slightly breathless as his fingers move to wrap around McCoy's wrist. "But I am kind of curious. Because you know, I've been trying to get that sort of reaction going on eight months now without much success."

"I don't know, I just… I don't know. I'm not sure why I was pushing you away before but Jim, you came to _Georgia_ for me even though you hated the fact that Jo doesn't know who I am. And yeah, you didn't just fuck off when I said no. I just…" he trails off, frustrated with himself for being unable to explain, but Jim doesn't seem to mind at all. "I think I was looking for some sort of emotional security and not expecting it from you. Because Jocelyn was more concerned about how my blindness affected us as a family, but you're more worried about how it affects me. Just me."

"Well, of course I am," Jim says, sounding confused and as if there's no other way it should be, and that's how McCoy knows.

* * *

When he wakes again a few hours later, it's to a cold, empty bed, and he feels a pang of disappointment spike through him as he sits up. He hadn't wanted to be wrong about Jim but maybe he was, even though he doesn't want to admit it. Figures that as soon as he decided it was time to move on and get on with his life, his life would decide that it was time to be a dick to him.

Relief and an embarrassing swell of happiness surge up his chest as the door opens, and familiar bare feet step on the carpet.

"Hey," Jim says quietly, closing the door behind himself with a soft click. "I went to get some breakfast, didn't want to wake you."

"I can get something later, it's fine," McCoy replies, the end tailing off as he fails to suppress a wide yawn. He blinks and rubs at his eyes pointlessly, scratching his chest, and then realizes that Jim is still stood with his back against the door on the other side of the room. "Well are you going to just stand there all day?" he asks drily, settling back against the pillows, and he can hear Jim shift awkwardly.

"I didn't want you to feel like I was being pushy, or anything," he mumbles, and McCoy's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

"What the hell gave you that idea?" he asks, astonished, and Jim clears his throat.

"Well, you were kind of all over the place this morning – emotionally, I mean – and you'd been pretty firm about not wanting me as anything more than a friend before, so I just thought that –"

"That what?" McCoy interrupts, frustrated. "That I didn't know what I wanted? Christ, kid, I know you're not stupid so quite playing that you are!"

"I was trying to be mature!" Jim snaps back, clearly riled, and McCoy can't help it. He laughs, leaning back against the headboard.

"Jim, you're possibly the least emotionally mature person I've ever met, but you know what?" he pauses, and takes a deep breath. "I couldn't give a damn. I've kind of gotten used to you just as you are, and I'm happy with that. So get your dumb ass back into bed before I drag it here."

Jim hesitates for a moment, lingering near the doorway, before trudging over like he's not entirely sure that this is what he wants. For a brief moment McCoy wonders if it really is, but then he remembers what Jim had said, and he knows that it is. Apparently, it's what McCoy wants too.

The bed dips as Jim leans one knee on it, and McCoy shifts down and across to make room for him. It's no better fit than before but it somehow feels far more comfortable, like there's a few extra blankets and inches of down been added. Of course there isn't, and McCoy knows exactly why it doesn't feel as awkward, but he's not going to admit to that. Jim settles in against his left side, toes pressed cold against his calf, one hand resting almost tentatively on his stomach. It's almost as if he's worried that if he pushes too far, McCoy'll be gone before he's had time to blink and he'll be left alone and cold and heartbroken. Well. It's not as if Jim's the only one with abandonment issues here.

He feels for Jim's face with the hand that isn't wrapped around his back and tilts it up, and kisses him. It's not the best angle and he doesn't quite hit full centre straight away, but it seems to resolve in Jim's head that yes, McCoy really _does_ want this, and he responds enthusiastically, shifting so that he can press his tongue inside McCoy's mouth with a faint noise in the back of his throat.

McCoy is perfectly happy to spend the whole morning exchanging soft, languid kisses and that's exactly what he plans to do but apparently Jim's got something else in mind. He pulls away somewhat reluctantly after a while, his fingers tracing over McCoy's features with feather-light touches.

"You really are exceptionally attractive, you know that?" he murmurs, kissing his jaw line. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Yeah, some annoying delinquent a few months back."

"I think I remember it. And I seem to recall that I didn't think you really believed me, at the time. Still don't think you do."

"I haven't seen my reflection in nearly four years, Jim, and feeling it only goes so far," he reminds him, and Jim settles his head on McCoy's chest. "But if you keep saying it enough then you never know, I might get to thinking you're telling the truth."

"Well, good," Jim says decisively. "I spoke to Jocelyn when I was eating my waffles. She asked me if I'd take Jo out to the park this morning so she can get the house cleared up properly, and I said I'd love to. I also said that you'd come with us."

"And she's okay with that?" McCoy says in surprise, taking a deep breath and ending up with Jim's hair in his nose. "No, wait, of course she is. She thinks you're fantastic. For some reason she trusts you enough to keep an eye on both of us."

"I was thinking you could use the time to get to know her a little," Jim ignores him, hand stroking up and down his ribs almost absently. "I guess Jocelyn won't leave you alone with her too often to just talk. This could be your big chance."

McCoy doesn't reply at first, because of course Jim's right. He'd never really thought about it but he doesn't talk to her much when Jocelyn's around, not really. He can't explain it but when it feels like she's supervising him with her and of course, she is, but it makes him careful about how he acts – like if he says or does the wrong thing, she'll tell him not to come any more, and then he'll not see his little girl at all. He doesn't think he'd be able to manage not seeing her at all.

"I see what your mom means, you know," he says after a while, tightening his grip on Jim and pulling him close against his body. "You kind of are really fucking intelligent."

* * *

It turns out that Jo doesn't have the same compunctions about talking as McCoy does, and she chatters away happily as they walk into town at the park. He's not sure what exactly what he was expecting – for her to latch onto Jim maybe, and mainly ignore him as he fades into the background – but she does nothing of the sort and he hates himself for thinking so low of her.

Instead, she takes his right hand in her own small one once they're out of the front gate and thanks him for the birthday gift that he'd got her and asks him if he'd enjoyed her birthday party. He manages to stutter a reply, and then she's launching straight into telling him all about school and how she loves science and math but hates history, and how there's one teacher that always smells, and how there's a new boy that half of the girls think is cute (but she doesn't).

She doesn't seem to mind that he doesn't respond much – Jim does enough talking for both of them – or that he holds onto her hand a bit tighter than is probably necessary, and that he doesn't want to let go.

* * *

McCoy remembers the park.

He'd brought Jo here when she was just after her first birthday, and just before he went blind. It had been a hot summer's day and Jocelyn had dressed her in a little yellow dress and shiny white shoes, and her brown hair was held back with bright clip. He'd held her carefully and slid her down the slide and she had shrieked with delight, and then he'd sat on the roundabout with her on his hip and slowly pushed them around with one foot, and she had giggled and pulled on his ear.

They left when a group of young hoodlums arrived on their second-hand hoverbikes, swearing and vandalizing and doing the sort of things that youngsters did. But Joanna had loved every minute of it, and McCoy decided that he'd have to bring her more often in future.

He didn't, of course, but it seemed she still enjoyed coming here, and a small voice inside McCoy's head hoped that it was down to him, and maybe he had influenced her growing up, in just one tiny way.

* * *

Now that she's six, as she reminds them at least twice within one hour, she doesn't need any help on any of the pieces of equipment but Jim seems quite intent on joining in anyway. McCoy leans against the fence that surrounds the park and listens to the sound of children and Jim playing as the birds sing above him and the late winter sum warms his face, and is content.

He hears them approach before either of them has spoken, with Jim's footfalls heavy and tired, and Jo giggling as she runs up and grabs McCoy around the thigh.

"Uncle Jim fell off the swing," she tells him, almost conspiratorially, and Jim huffs as he reaches them, bumping McCoy's shoulder with his own.

"I jumped off from a height and didn't land quite as gracefully as I'd intended," Jim corrects her good-naturedly. "I'd like to see you do any better, miss."

"She'll do no such thing," McCoy barks, his hand coming to rest on Jo's shoulder. "That's kind of an irresponsible thing to do, Jim. She's six."

"Six yesterday!" Jo says proudly. "Hey Uncle Len, do you reckon we could get ice cream later? Please?" she asks, tugging on his jeans, and he shakes his head.

"It'll spoil your lunch, and your momma would never forgive me," he says apologetically, but she doesn't kick up a fuss or sulk or anything, just nods in a way that McCoy can feel through her shoulder.

"Hey Jo, you know what?" Jim suddenly asks from somewhere around McCoy's waist, and he's presumably crouched down to Joanna's level. "People don't like it when you call them something that they're not. It makes them sad. You wouldn't like it if someone was calling you names and they weren't true, would you?"

"No," Joanna says, a little curiously, her arm still wrapped around McCoy's leg, and he has to wonder where the hell Jim is going with this one.

"Yeah, neither do I. And neither does your Uncle Len. See, he's not actually your Uncle, and it makes him sad when you call him that."

"Jim –"

"But Mommy said that –"

"I know what Mommy said," Jim continues, not giving her a chance to continue or for McCoy to tell him to shut the hell up. He really doesn't need Jo running back to Jocelyn and telling her about this, not now. "But she made a mistake. It's okay, everyone makes mistakes, even me. Sometimes. But you need to call him just 'Len'. You think you can do that?"

There's a beat's silence where McCoy knows that Jo's thinking quite seriously about Jim's proposal, and imagines that her perfect little face is scrunched slightly as she contemplates it. And then she suddenly nods against his hip, and he releases the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Okay," she says brightly, releasing his leg. "Len, can I go play with Johnny and Emily on the swings?"

"Sure, darlin'," McCoy says, releasing his daughter's shoulder as she runs off towards the swings with a shout, and swallows once or twice. Then he feels Jim's hand press into the small of his back, and folds his arms across his chest so he doesn't reach out to touch him. "Jim…"

"I know, I know. But at least she won't grow up hating you for lying to her all this time. It's not quite the truth but at least you're not outright lying, and she'll appreciate that in time. I promise."

"I was going to thank you, actually, but if you'd rather I laid into you then that's fine by me," he says drily and Jim's hand moves across to curl around his waist, arm warm and reassuring and solid and _real_ against McCoy's back.

* * *

It should scare him, really, just how domestic a routine they fall into once they get back home.

The normal three days a week that Jim comes around to his apartment is countered by McCoy going to his just as often, and the guys at the clinic have pretty much come to accept Jim as a permanent fixture in the waiting room. Exactly why Jim still doesn't have a job is a point of contention between them but Jim tends to distract McCoy with blowjobs if they're moving towards an argument.

Half of the time Jim's hanging around as his shift and takes his back to his own apartment on the back on his bike, and then in the morning he'll give him a lift in. McCoy stops letting Jim escort him into the clinic in his leather jacket when Louisa tells him in no uncertain terms that if he wasn't in the picture, she would be doing her very best to get into Jim's pants.

Every time he's stuck working a late shift he comes home to Jim cooking for them both and has a tall glass of sweet tea pressed into his hand and his bag removed from his shoulder as soon as he's through the door. Once they've finished eating they sit on the couch with McCoy's back pressed against Jim's chest as they talk or listen to medical journals.

It's _disgustingly_ domestic if he's honest, more than he ever managed with Jocelyn and he'd been in love with her since he was fifteen.

The smug comm messages that he gets from Winona doesn't help matter at all.

* * *

**_March 2255_**

_

* * *

  
_

Jim's birthday rolls around as the last of the winter chill leaves the air and McCoy turns down the heating slightly in his own apartment. Over a year of living in Iowa and he still hasn't managed to get used to the cooler climate – though Jim never stopped wandering around outside in a t-shirt, even when it was snowing, and can't quite wrap his head around the fact that McCoy wants to wear more than one layer.

On the morning that Jim turns twenty-two, McCoy wakes up shivering in his own bed with no duvet. A few seconds of feeling around tells him that at some point in the night, Jim rolled himself up the duvet and then rolled back out of it again, depositing it on the floor on the opposite side. He's currently sprawled across the bed on his front, snoring in a deep, rumbling sort of way, one foot pressed against McCoy's calf.

It's a position that McCoy is becoming increasingly familiar with. And it's good, because it means that he can get out of bed without waking him – when Jim does decide that he wants to spend the night clinging onto McCoy with a sort of limpet-like enthusiasm, he's extremely reluctant to let go in the morning, and it usually takes a hard hit and a shout for the death-grip to loosen enough that for him to escape.

But in this position he can get away without any of this hassle because Jim is a remarkably deep sleeper. He showers and dresses and eats his breakfast, then goes back to the bed to brush Jim's hair back from his forehead and press a gentle kiss there and wish him a happy birthday in a whisper. Jim stirs, but doesn't wake.

McCoy locks the door behind himself quietly and leaves.

* * *

He has no idea what to do. He doesn't know what the appropriate way to act would be. Which is he supposed to commemorate first, Jim's birthday or George's death? More importantly, what will _Jim_ do first?

McCoy's been wondering about it for a good week or so but Jim's been determinedly ignoring the whole concept, and going quiet and slightly sullen whenever McCoy tries to bring it up and even walking out once in the middle of dinner. He can't even comm Winona to ask what to do because no doubt she'll be trying to do both at once and getting extremely emotional and going out and doing the gardening to vent. Besides, it wouldn't be appropriate. Deneva's in the next system and too far for McCoy's old-fashioned comm to manage the distance so he can't even ask Sam the best way to proceed.

So he contacts the only other person that he can think of, the only one that knows enough to help.

It's kind of depressing that he only has about five people to talk to.

* * *

Jocelyn is surprisingly helpful, though McCoy's not sure if that's because she's decided to be nicer to him since he visited, or if she's just inordinately fond of Jim. He has a feeling that it's the latter but he's not exactly complaining.

Apparently, she'd known that they were an item well before he had, which doesn't surprise him. He doesn't even have to say how he feels – she just knows, in that way that all the women in his life seem to. He expects her to say something derisive at first but she doesn't. She just pays careful attention to what he says and after a few moments tell him exactly what she thinks he should do. And he listens to her.

* * *

McCoy's waiting for him when he finally comes home as midnight rolls around, two bottles of beer open on the table in front of him. The sharp tang of fuel follows Jim as he trudges through and slumps on the sofa beside McCoy, shifting around until his back's pressed against the side of McCoy's chest.

"How was your mom?" McCoy asks as Jim takes a long gulp of his beer, head leaning back on McCoy's shoulder. He takes a while to answer, and McCoy's not sure if he's trying to put it into words or just doesn't want to talk about it.

"Same as ever," he says eventually with a shrug, reaching to pull McCoy's arm over his shoulder and across his chest. "She told me that she's happy for me. She said that she's glad I've found someone that might help me get my life on track."

"You know I'm not going to push you to do anything," McCoy reminds him, and Jim heaves a sigh.

"I know _you're_ not. But she wants so bad for me to make myself into something and every year, I go to her and she sees just how pointless and useless my life's become, as I feel as though I've let her down so bad. She always looks kind of disappointed whenever I go to see her."

"She loves you, Jim."

"I know. And I know that she doesn't mean to, but she can't help it, I guess. I'm not a scientist like Sam, or a hero like my father, or anything, and I probably never will be."

"Kid, you could do whatever you want," McCoy says, pulling him closer in to his chest and pausing to take a swig of his beer. "If you set your mind to something, I bet you'd manage it, no matter what it was."

"You have way too much faith in me, Bones," Jim says with a small, bitter laugh, and reaches to place the empty bottle on the floor. "But thanks."

"It's the honest truth," he says simply, and Jim doesn't reply at first. Then he takes a few deep breaths, and after two aborted attempts to speak, he finally does with a rattling breath.

"You know when I was twelve, and drove the Corvette off the cliff?" he asks suddenly, tracing idle patterns on the arm that's wrapped around his chest, and McCoy's temporarily thrown by the change in conversation.

"You've mentioned it before when pissed, yeah," he replies slowly.

"Well there was this moment, when I was coming up to the cliff. I just thought, it's a perfect way to end it. Nobody could survive a drop like the one I was headed to and I don't know, I just thought that all I'd have to do was keep going. Gravity'd do the rest, put a stop to a miserable childhood."

"Jesus, Jim…"

"It was only for a split second," Jim argues a little petulantly, leaning his head back on McCoy's shoulder. "In case you hadn't noticed I am still very alive. I jumped out pretty much as soon as I'd thought about it, but I still _thought_ about it. And you're the one with psychology training, you tell me what that means."

"You were actually thinking of killing yourself?" McCoy asks incredulously and Jim shrugs, as though he's still not entirely sure himself.

"I don't know. But it was more than that; there was something else about it that made me feel alive. I was going so fast but I was still in control for the first time in my life and it felt like if I let that car keep going and jumped out into the quarry, I'd have just kept on going. Just… flown into the sun. It was one hell of a rush."

"That's not exactly healthy, Jim," McCoy says, and Jim chuckles.

"I never said I had a normal childhood."

"And yet you've not really tried to escape it, have you?" McCoy points out. "You still live just an hour or so away from your mom."

"Okay, so let's go away for a few days. Get out of Iowa."

"And go where, exactly?"

"Georgia, see your parents. Or Sam's got a place in Miami we can use, they're off-planet now until the fall, he won't mind."

"That sounds the better option by far."

"You know, I'm gonna have to meet your parents at some point. You've met my mom, I bet yours isn't half as bad."

"You're not going to meet my parents because if you go that I have to go, and that's kind of something that I've been avoiding for the past four years," McCoy snaps, then immediately regrets his sharp tone as Jim falls silent and tenses in his arms.

"Sorry," Jim mutters, fidgeting, and McCoy sighs in frustration with himself.

"Just forget about it. Happy twenty-second birthday, kid," he murmurs into Jim's hair, pulling him in close. "I am really fucking glad you jumped out of that goddamn car."

"Yeah," Jim replies, his voice quieter than McCoy's ever heard it. "I guess I am, too."

Jim relaxes in his arms again and McCoy makes a mental note to comm Jocelyn and thank her for telling him just to let Jim be Jim, and just to stay with him, and help him keep the pieces together. And then to thank Jim for making it so that he's in a position where he can talk to Jocelyn about this sort of thing, without the fear that if he says the wrong thing he'll never be allowed to touch his daughter again. Because he's not sure how, but he knows that it's down to Jim that Jocelyn is willing to speak to him now.

"Tell me what you want," he says into Jim's hairline, pressing another kiss to his temple, and he feels Jim's neck twist so that his face is turned into him.

"You," Jim whispers against his neck, lips warm and comforting. "Just you."

* * *

McCoy comes with Jim above around and in him, pressing him down into the sofa with every thrust, sweat pooling on their skin as their bodies slip-slides together, all hands and mouths and frantic breaths.

McCoy comes with Jim's lips on his and for a split second as his mind shatters into a million pieces, he thinks that he can see the outline of Jim back-lit above him, his arms outstretched and ready to fly.

* * *


	4. part 4 of 4

**_April 2255_**

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* * *

  
_

"Don't leave your boots there, you'll trip over them," Jim says absently, and McCoy gives the general vicinity of the kitchen the finger as he continues into his bathroom, intent on just getting a shower as soon as possible because some drunkard threw up on him in a startlingly similar way to his first encounter with Jim.

The sonic shower than Jim had made him install is far more efficient that the old water one that he used to have, and he's clean and out within five minutes – he actually far prefers it to his previous shower but he's not going to tell Jim that any time soon, because he'll just laugh and get smug.

"What's for dinner?" he asks as he walks back into the kitchen, pulling a spare t-shirt over his head, and jumps as Jim's cold hands grab at his bare waist and pull him into an embrace.

"Tenderloin sandwiches on the table. I'm running out of food, we need to go shopping," he says absently as McCoy's head pops out of the top of his t-shirt. "Rough day at work?"

"Business as usual, really," he replies tiredly, giving Jim a quick kiss before moving away to get a glass of water. "Drunkards, pregnant teens and old Mrs Campbell. Just more of them than normal."

"Mrs Campbell been cloning herself?"

"Your wit astounds me, kid," McCoy grumbles as he sits down and picks up a sandwich. "What about you, been busy?"

"Bored, more like. Went to see Mom, she says hi. Helped out on the farm but that's about all."

"This is why you need to get a real job, so you're not bored all the time. How was she anyway?"

"Fine. What journals have we got for tonight?"

It's kind of endearing, really, that Jim's as eager to learn about the new advances in medicine as he is, but then Jim is a genius and needs to get his intake of information from somewhere. The weird thing is how he devours the knowledge and goes through all of McCoy's old PADDs to check for more.

"Gene therapy. I've actually done some investigating and managed to get myself signed up for a course of it later on in the year."

"What exactly is it?" Jim asks around a mouthful of pork.

"Gene manipulation. They'll take out the ones that have caused my eyes to give up, replace them with healthy ones, and if I'm lucky, I'll get my eyesight back in a year or so."

"If you're _lucky_?" Jim repeats, and McCoy imagines that he sees Jim's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "Don't they know if it'll actually work?"

"They need test subjects."

"Bones –"

"Jim, if I wait and it turns out to work then I'll never get my eyesight back because the operation will be fucking expensive and disability allowances only go so far you know, specially when you're paying child support on top of your own rent and living expenses," McCoy snaps, reaching for another sandwich.

"Here," Jim grunts as he places one in his hand. "But what if it goes wrong? What if it doesn't work?"

"What have I got to lose? My eyesight?" McCoy asks sarcastically, and he hears the sigh of frustration from Jim and knows that he's being an immature dick, but doesn't really care.

"I just want to know that you've thought about this properly. I mean you're the one that's meant to be medically trained so I guess you know better, but what if they're not targeting the right genes? What if it doesn't give you your sight back but somehow messes you up so you can't walk? Or can't hear? Then what're you going to do?"

"There's risks in any medical procedure."

"But a hell of a lot more in this one than most, am I right?"

"What's your problem, Jim?" McCoy says tiredly, resting his elbows on the table and leaning over slightly. "I thought you'd be up for this, I thought you'd want it."

Jim's silent and breathing heavily for a moment before he stands suddenly, the screech of the chair on the old wooden floor startling McCoy.

"So that's what this is about?" Jim asks as he paces, and McCoy scowls because dammit it's _not_, not really, but he knows that when he tells himself that he's kind of lying a bit too. Plus Jim sounds almost hurt which is ridiculous because he's got no fucking right to be.

"You're making my problems about you again," he says sourly instead of answering properly, and Jim stops pacing to stand directly behind him and lean in towards his ear.

"No, _you're_ making this about me," he growls, his breath hot against McCoy's cheek, and he twitches away. "You really think that I want you to do this that badly?"

"It had crossed my mind," he admits stiffly, and then Jim whirls away and McCoy can practically feel the frustration emanating from Jim's body.

"Then your mind needs looking at because if you honestly think that I want any part of you to change, Leonard. I am falling for the cranky, divorced, _blind_ guy that works at the clinic on Towncrest Drive. If you weren't blind, you wouldn't be that guy."

"I didn't say that you're the deciding factor."

"But it's a part of it, right? So take what you think I want of the equation, then put in what I actually want and then weigh up your pros and cons again, and tell me if it's still worth the risk."

"I don't want to be blind for the rest of my life!" McCoy spits as he stares dead ahead and clenches his fists on the table. He's not sure if there's any sandwiches left, and he's not sure why he's even bothered.

"And I don't want you to die because of some stupid therapy that might not even work and might go completely wrong. Did you stop to consider what effect it'd have on people if the procedure went to shit, or were you just thinking about yourself?"

"I fucking deserve to be selfish for once!" McCoy shouts, standing from his seat and whirling around to where he last heard Jim, and then the world twists underneath him as he falls over the fucking boots that he kicked off and didn't move when Jim fucking Kirk told him to.

He throws out an arm to break his fall but misses, and then his head hits something seriously fucking hard and his vision explodes with a whiteness that's almost comforting, then nothing.

And then Jim's hands on his skin, one under his neck and the other around his back, and _ow shitting fuck_ that hurts and a wet trail's making its way down across his forehead and nose and into his eye socket.

"Bones? Can you hear me?" Jim's saying frantically, hauling him up and Jesus is the man _carrying_ him? McCoy grunts as he's laid down on the couch and even that's kind of painful, and wait, Jim shouldn't have moved him, he might have a neck injury.

"You shouldn't have moved me, you moron. I could have broken my neck," he snaps, and Jim lets go of him immediately and jerks away as if he's been burned.

"Fuck you, McCoy," he sputters furiously, and McCoy has no idea why he just said that.

"Jim," he begins, rolling over and pushing himself up despite the vicious pain shooting across the front of his head, and promptly throws up on the floor.

"Dammit, Bones," Jim mutters, and then he's back crouching beside him and pressing a glass of water into his hand that he takes gratefully, and Jim's hand is resting on his chest as he lays his head back against the couch arm.

"Thanks," he groans as he presses a hand to his temple, and Jim pulls it away to poke at the broken skin.

"I need to clean that up and get you to the clinic or hospital or something."

"It's a mild head injury, I'll be fine," McCoy counters, but this time he doesn't try and move when Jim stands up and starts going through his stuff for alcohol and pads. "Seriously Jim, I just need to lie down for a sec."

"Which you wouldn't even need to do in the first place if you hadn't left your boots in the middle of the kitchen."

"Which wouldn't have _mattered_ if I could see," McCoy retorts, then hisses as Jim dabs at his forehead with the alcohol-soaked pad without warning. Maybe he deserves it, he's not sure. "I saw a flash of light, Jim."

"It was just white noise, Bones. You know that," Jim says firmly. "It was just your brain having a spasm."

McCoy presses his head back and scowls, because it's true and he's more frustrated with himself than Jim if he's completely honest.

"I just want to be able to see," he says and knows that he sound pathetic and weak, but Jim's seen him worse. He kind of doesn't care.

"And you know that I'm totally up for that but _not_ if you're going to risk killing yourself to get it," Jim replies softly, finishing up cleaning his head and tilting McCoy's face towards him. "I want you to be able to see, I really do. But I also want you alive. Is that too much to ask?"

"It is when it's not your choice to make."

Jim sighs and releases him, and McCoy can hear his joints crack into place as he straightens up and steps away.

"I'm going out. I'm not fighting about this," he says flatly, and McCoy pushes himself up into a sitting position despite the throbbing pain in his head that tells him to stay lying down.

"Where're you gonna go?"

"I don't know, okay? Just… out."

McCoy doesn't stop him as he walks out of the door.

* * *

He lays there on the couch for half an hour or so, head tilted back and aimed at the ceiling, lights turned off nearly twenty minutes ago to save on electric as per usual. Jim's right of course, in his own way, but he just can't understand this no matter how hard he tries. And he does want to understand, McCoy knows that, but until he's been blind and desperate to see something he'll never get it.

He's dozing off as he hears the door click open down the hall, and footsteps into his bedroom. It's a good thing actually, because in all likelihood he's got concussion and he really shouldn't be sleeping with that. He waits until the footsteps come closer before speaking.

"Can we talk about this?" he asks quietly and the footsteps freeze just inside the door. There's something off about the sound of them, something that McCoy can't quite place, and he sighs as he gets no response. "Jim, please."

"The fuck, man?"

And that makes McCoy sit up quickly, fumbling for his comm, because that is most definitely not Jim's voice and he's half upright with his head spinning when the lights are commanded to full and there's something cold and hard pressed between his shoulder blades.

"Get the hell out of my apartment," he growls, freezing in place even as adrenaline courses through his body, and then there's the sound of another set of feet running up the stairs and to his front door.

"What shit are you pulling, sitting here with the lights off?" the man behind him demands while the other person runs through his apartment, and McCoy grits his teeth as a mixture of terror and fury wash through him. He has no idea if what's pressing into his back is actually a phaser or old-fashioned gun or something equally debilitating but he doesn't particularly feel like testing it out.

"I was trying to sleep," he says with his teeth gritted, and it's half the truth.

"Put your hands up on your head. Now," the guy demands and McCoy complies, his comm trapped beneath his left thigh where he'd rolled onto it in his haste to get upright. "And you stay where the fuck you are, you hear me?"

"There's nothing worth stealing here," McCoy says shortly as he links his fingers together behind his throbbing head, hands shaking. "I can tell you that now."

"Yeah, well we'll be the judge of that," the guy snaps in response, stepping away from him, and McCoy reckons he can't be old. Probably about the same age as Jim, maybe a bit younger, and he finds himself wishing that Jim were here right now. "Jeez, he's puked all over the floor..."

"Hey man, check it out," comes a grunt from the other side of the lounge – the other person, another guy – and then there's a harsh bark of laughter and he can hear them moving around, tracking their movements with twitches of his head. Suddenly one of them's in front of him, and the air's moving in a way that means there's probably a hand being waved in front of his face.

"Shit, you're blind as a fucking bat, aren't you?" the first youth cackles gleefully, poking McCoy in the chest, and he jerks backwards. "Jesus your eyes are freaky, all blank and shit."

"Well at least you don't have to worry about me picking you out of a police line-up," McCoy says a little sardonically, and there's a huff of laughter from the second guy.

"We're not taking chances, old man," he scoffs, and then there's another explosion of pain at his temple and another flash of light that McCoy tries and fails to cling to as he slips once again from consciousness.

* * *

He doesn't know how long he's been when he comes to, his left cheek wet with blood and vicious pains lancing through his skull. The apartment's quiet though, which means the robbers must have left, but it also means that Jim's not here, and McCoy's chest tightens.

He hauls himself from the couch where he'd collapsed, one hand clutching his comm and the other patting around himself. It lands on his cane and feels for the end of it, wincing when it he finds it sticky and warm. So this is what they used to knock him out, how charming.

The trip to the bathroom turns out to be harder than expected, not least because his head is threatening to explode but because there's obstacles all over the floor and he has a feeling that if he could see what it was, he'd be bemoaning the state of his furniture. But he can't, so he just soldiers on and stumbles into the bathroom, opening the med cabinet and selecting a really fucking strong painkiller that he normally wouldn't have even considered using on himself for something like a headache. But he reasons that these are extenuating circumstances as he jabs it into his neck with trembling fingers, and he can feel the ache easing immediately as he comms Jim.

"What is it?" Jim asks tiredly after a few seconds, his voice strangely muffled as though he's standing somewhere with a strong wind, and McCoy's never been so relieved to hear his voice. He swallows a few times before answering.

"You said I could comm you if I had any trouble," he says quietly, his voice shaking far more than he would ever admit to. "I need you."

"I'll be right there," Jim says quickly and ends the communication. McCoy pauses for a few seconds before lowering his hand and sitting hard on the toilet seat, cradling his comm in his hands as the pain in his head lessens every second. He'd been stupid to think that he could manage on his own – he'd been lucky to last this long, and that was with Jim's helping hand for the past few months. And now he has no idea what they'd even taken, if they'd left any credits or any of his slightly more valuable belongings. What they'd decided to trash, if he had anything left at all that wasn't destroyed. God, he hopes his PADDs with recordings of Jo on are still intact.

The front door bangs open and McCoy flinches, nearly falling off his seat, but it isn't them again. No, this time there's no mistaking those footsteps and the familiarity with which they move around his apartment.

"Jesus..." Jim mutters from the other room, and then raises his voice frantically. "Bones!"

"I'm in the bathroom," he says quietly, still lightly grasping the comm in his hands, and there's a crashing sort of noise as Jim rushes in and stops directly in front of him. His breathing is heavy enough that McCoy can hear it, and he wonders just where Jim was when he commed him.

"Bones," he says again, quieter and less frantic but just as worried, and McCoy stands up unsteadily. He reaches out and Jim grabs at him, pulling him into a fiercely tight embrace that nearly winds him but he doesn't let go. He knows that he's still shaking and he knows that Jim can feel it but he doesn't care, just presses his face into Jim's neck as Jim's arms wrap around his back, holding him up and close against his body.

"You okay?" Jim murmurs against his ear and McCoy nods as he clutches at Jim's shirt.

"Gave myself a hypospray, but I could do with a regenerator running over my head," he admits, and Jim releases him only to take hold of his face and run his fingers over it, pausing at the new gash on the left-hand side and tracing it gently. McCoy can feel it but it doesn't hurt, and he's so wrung out that he just leans into Jim's touch and closes his eyes.

"What the hell happened?" Jim asks quietly, hands still bracketing his face, and McCoy sighs.

"A pair of burglars broke in, caught me unawares. Knocked me out, and when I came to they were gone and they'd trashed the place. I don't even know what the damage is."

"Pretty extensive," Jim spits, resting on hand on McCoy's shoulder but otherwise releasing him as he steps back. "Hey, is that blood on your cane?"

"I told you, they knocked me out."

"I'll fucking kill them. You called the police yet?"

"No. Just you."

Jim's grip tightens on his shoulder and McCoy feels kind of bad, landing all of this shit on him, but he didn't know what else to do. He feels completely helpless and not for the first time he realizes just how good an idea it had been for him to leave Jocelyn and Joanna. Jesus, if he'd been within Jo when this had happened...

"Yeah, I'd like to report a burglary," Jim's saying a few feet away, and McCoy shakes his head slightly to clear it. "127 Sycamore Street, Apartment 3F... yeah, I could do with a medic... no, it's Leonard McCoy... okay, thanks."

"They sending someone?" McCoy asks as he sits back down on the toilet seat and Jim presses against him, hip to his shoulder in a strangely comforting sort of way.

"They'll be here as soon as they can, and they're bringing a medic," he says, one hand coming to thread through his hair. "I'm sorry, Bones, I shouldn't have walked out. I mean, if I'd been here..."

"If I hadn't _made_ you walk out, you mean?" McCoy asks sharply, but immediately relaxes as insistent fingers knead at his scalp. "It's not your fault, Jim."

"But still..."

"It happened. I'm okay. A bit bruised and still kinda shaky but I'll be fine. Now tell me what the damage is."

"I didn't get a proper look, I was more worried about you," Jim admits with a shrug that McCoy feels against his body. "Pretty bad, though. Looks like they took anything worth taking and just trashed the rest out of spite. How many were there?"

"Just two, I think. Young kids, younger than you I reckon. And one of them had a phaser or something like, or felt like it anyway."

"They pulled a phaser on you?" Jim repeats, sounding shocked, and this time it's McCoy's turn to shrug as Jim's hand stills against his neck.

"Like I said, felt like it. He pushed something between my shoulder blades and I wasn't taking any chances."

Jim goes silent for a minute or two, apparently just content to hold onto McCoy with one hand as they wait. It's a strange quiet in the apartment, an unnatural one that makes McCoy slightly uneasy as he leans his head into the slight dip at Jim's waist.

"Hey," Jim suddenly says quietly, his fingers slipping under McCoy's shirt at his neck and sliding against warm skin. "Didn't I tell you this was the worst part of town to live in?"

"Yeah, kid," McCoy sighs, closing his eyes and not even managing a scowl or a smile or something in between. "You told me."

* * *

By the time the police and medics have come and gone, McCoy's just tired.

He'd been patched up within seconds, the medics pointedly ignoring his claims that he didn't need looking at and he was just fine, the right medication pumping through his veins and his skin smooth and unmarked. The police had catalogued the damage, done a scan for foreign DNA or trace left from the robbers, but found barely any – and with no visual description to go on, there was little that they could do. They'd finally left after two hours of scouring his flat, and he'd gone through meticulously with Jim to work out what they'd stolen and try and put back upright that which was undamaged.

McCoy didn't even have it in himself to complain as Jim packed him up a duffel bag and threw in his remaining medical journals and the thankfully intact PADDs of Jo, and bundled him into a taxi. He just leaned into him as they walked up the steps to Jim's apartment, and was fast asleep within seconds of lowering his head onto Jim's pillow.

* * *

**_May 2255_**

_

* * *

  
_

Jim's even more hyperactive than normal when they arrive in Miami on the back of his bike, the hot spring summer beating down on their necks.

"I hope you brought plenty of sun block, old man," Jim murmurs, taking hold of his wrist as they approach the shuttle. "Freckled skin burns really fucking easily."

"The only freckles I have are on my back," McCoy points out flatly, hoisting his bag higher onto his shoulder, and Jim's grip tightens on his wrist.

"Yeah, I know. But your daughter has them all over."

"What… oh, hell, _no_," he barks as he realizes what Jim means, but it's too late – there's a shriek and then a small body throws itself at him, thin arms wrapped around his waist and fragile head pressed into his stomach.

"Len!" Jo shouts, letting go of him to probably grab Jim. "Uncle Jim!"

"Hey, kiddo!" Jim exclaims, and McCoy has to bite his tongue really fucking hard not to shout and ask him what the hell he's doing. "It was good of you to let us take her for a few days."

"I trust you," Jocelyn says, and McCoy wonders how the hell Jim managed to wangle this one, because Jocelyn's been quite happy keeping him out of their lives altogether and now she's letting him take his daughter on holiday?

"Jim, I need a word," he says in clipped tones, reaching somewhere to his left with his free hand, and Jim takes hold of his elbow and steers him a few feet away. And apparently Jim knows exactly how he'll react.

"Bones, just let me –"

"What the hell were you _thinking_?" McCoy hisses, turning to face him. "Why didn't you fucking tell me?"

"Because you would have said no. It's just five days," Jim wheedles, taking hold of his upper arms and not letting go when McCoy attempts to shrug him off. "Come on, what's the problem?"

"It's just not a good idea."

"No, it's a brilliant idea. And Jocelyn's using the opportunity to go Eurasia with Clay, so it's too late to get a babysitter. Not much choice really. Now they're waiting, come on."

"Bad idea," McCoy repeats, a little weakly, but he allows Jim to drag him back to his daughter anyway.

* * *

It actually turns out to be quite a good idea.

McCoy's not sure how long Jim's been planning this but he's pretty much got a timetable for the break – and most of the activities that he's organized seem to be focused on Joanna. On the first day, after getting their gear unpacked, they go to the MetroZoo. It's one of the few zoos in the world to keep only terran animals, and Jo loves it and wants to go back every day that they're there. At one point when they're wandering around, Jim suddenly grabs his hand and yanks him to the side and he nearly trips over a small child that's running around. He's about to shout at Jim when his hand comes into contact with something warm and solid and soft, and Jo tells him that he's stroking a Bengal tiger, and isn't her fur soft?

Mid-afternoon on the second day, Jim takes them on a shuttle to the Miami Science Museum. It's the usual deal, designed for children with just enough intelligence to keep the adults amused. Jim shows Jo around all of the exhibits and goes into much more detail with each concept than the museum does, but explains everything in a way that his daughter can understand. And she does understand, and she keeps up with Jim all the way through and McCoy's pretty sure he's going to have a genius for a daughter.

So, quite a good idea, overall, McCoy decides as he stretches out on the sun bed out the back of Sam and Aurelan's house. When they'd first arrived, Jim had taken him on a tour of the house, making sure he knew where the edges of the pool were so he didn't fall in at any point and injure himself. McCoy had pointed out that he could swim, and Jim had pointed out that if he fell in and cracked his head on the concrete sides, he wouldn't be able to swim at all.

Also, Jim can cook, and he can cook well. That's always a bonus.

"Hey," Jim says cheerfully, rousing McCoy from the light doze that he'd managed to slip in to. "How long have you been out here? You got any sun block on?"

"If I burn I can run a regenerator over it, and skin cancer's not been an issue for the last fifty years, unless you'd forgotten. What's Jo doing?" McCoy murmurs sleepily as he adjusts his head on his arms, listening to the pop of the sun block bottle.

"She's on the comm to Jocelyn," Jim says, and then his hands are smoothing down McCoy's back in wide strokes, cool cream beneath his palms, and McCoy rumbles contentedly. There's a certain soothing sense to the repetition of Jim's hands on his skin, rubbing in the sun block as they curve around his ribs and down to his waist, dipping under the waistband of his trunks and then up his spine and over his shoulders in firm presses, sliding down his biceps and back up again in a fluid, smooth motion.

"You should get a job as a masseur," he mumbles into his forearms, relaxing under Jim's touch. "You'd make millions."

"Yours is the only back I want to manhandle," Jim says after a moment, then leans forward over him to press a light kiss to the back of his neck. "I'm gonna get some pop, you want anything?"

"It's called soda," McCoy reminds him. "And no, I'm good thanks."

He listens to Jim move back into the house, pouring himself a glass and getting some ice from the freezer, and tries to ignore the erection that's pressing into the sun bed beneath him.

"Hey Len, you coming swimming?" Jo asks as she approaches him, and he shifts uncomfortably before shaking his head.

"Not right now, sweetheart," he says, listening to her dip her toes in the water to test it. "How's your mom?"

"Having fun, but not as much fun as me, I don't reckon. Come on in!"

"Yeah, Bones, come on in!" Jim teases as he returns from the kitchen, and McCoy shifts as he sits down on the sun bed beside him. "I bet it's gorgeous."

"Freezing, more like," he mutters, the bottom of Jim's back pressing against his hip. "Plus I have an enormous hard-on right now and that isn't something that she needs to see."

Jim nearly pisses himself laughing at that, and McCoy tries to scowl at him but it's not too easy, and he doesn't quite manage it. Instead he allows Jim to tease him until he knows that Jo's gone back into the house to change into her bathing suit, and he stands up and heads for the pool.

He gets in as far as his groin and his erection pretty much completely disappears, his balls retreating into his body with a speed that probably means they won't be reappearing any time soon.

He hears the whoop from behind and the thudding of feet, but he doesn't process the two and realize exactly what they mean until they both stop and it's just a little too late to get out of the way. Jim lands about two feet from him with the force of a small horse, and McCoy is left soaked and shivering and cursing a blue streak ten parsecs wide as Jim swims away.

He decides that now it doesn't matter if his balls ever decide to drop back down again because Jim _definitely_ isn't getting any action tonight.

* * *

**_June 2255_**

_

* * *

  
_

Their third major argument starts with Jim discovering a half-completed application for experimental gene therapy on McCoy's PADD, and culminates with Jim slamming the front door and McCoy nursing a headache as he slumps against the door frame.

Sometimes, he's not entirely sure if it's all worth the hassle.

* * *

The headache's pretty much gone by the time he feels Jim climb into bed with him smelling faintly of fuel and alcohol and something else, the movement waking him from the light doze that he'd drifted into, and he rolls onto his side to face him.

"Hey," he murmurs sleepily, reaching out for him, and Jim leans into his touch. That's got to be a good sign.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"You know me, I was just dozing. Where did you go?"

"Storm Lake."

"What? Jesus Jim, that's gotta be two hundred miles away," he mutters, rolling back over, and Jim follows him and settles against his chest. "What in hell made you want to go there?"

"Just wanted to get away from the city," Jim replies with a shrug, and now McCoy can actually _feel_ the tension thrumming through Jim's body to he lifts a hand to his hair and strokes through it, pulling him in closer.

"Get away from me, you mean," he says drily, and Jim shakes his head.

"Nah, I was over that. It's your choice and you can make it without my help, I get it. I was just pissed that you didn't tell me that you were going ahead with it."

"I won't make that mistake again, in that case."

"You'd better not," Jim murmurs and shifts to kiss him, pressing skin to skin and slipping his tongue between McCoy's unprepared lips and McCoy pulls him closer, one hand still gripping his hair, and it's when he's this close that he realizes what the smell was that came into bed with him.

"Why can I taste blood in your mouth?" he asks accusingly as he pulls away, moving his hand to run his fingers over Jim's face. "You been fighting again?"

Jim sighs and settles his head back on McCoy's shoulder, dropping a gentle kiss to the skin there that kind of tickles as McCoy prods at his face.

"Yeah, some dickhead cadets from Starfleet were in the bar and couldn't take a joke."

"You're in luck – just bruising and lesions."

"You going to fix them?

"No, I'm going to leave them as a reminder for why you shouldn't get into fights," he says blandly, and pokes what he hopes is Jim's bruised cheek. The grunt he gets for his efforts confirms that his aim is pretty good. "Now, are you going to tell me what happened at Storm Lake that's got you so worked up?"

Jim's quiet for a minute, his breathing slow and steady and McCoy's beginning to think that he's dozed off when he suddenly speaks.

"It was Captain Pike who broke up the fight."

"Pike that wrote the dissertation on the Kelvin?"

"The very same," Jim murmurs, and pauses again as though he's trying to work out the best way to put his thoughts into words. "He wants me to join Starfleet."

McCoy can't help it – he laughs.

"They'd throw you out within two weeks, you're not cut out for any sort of military crap," he points out, and Jim shifts against him.

"See, that's what I thought when he said it and pretty much told him to fuck off. But then I really _thought_ about it when I was riding back here, and I think I should try it at least. What've I got to lose?"

"Me, for one," he points out, and Jim squirms, turning his head so that his chin is propped on McCoy's chest and he's most likely looking straight at him.

"I want you to come with me," Jim says, and McCoy imagines that he can see the intense look in eyes that he doesn't even know the color of. "I contacted people, asked around, and they'd accept you despite your disability. You could try and complete your doctorate or something, I don't know. I just want you there."

"Wait, you want me to join _Starfleet_?" McCoy asks incredulously, and he feels Jim prop himself up on his elbow, his hand still resting over McCoy's chest.

"Yeah, I do. I mean, it's perfect. Pike says I'll be an officer in four years but I can do it with three, and it's something to _do_ with my life instead of knocking around Iowa for fucking ever."

"And where do I fit into this 'perfect' little plan of yours?" McCoy asks sourly, glaring at where he thinks Jim's head is. "Have you considered what a monumentally _bad_ idea it is for me to try and do something like this?"

"How is it a bad idea?" Jim retorts, and dammit but he just sounds confused and hurt and for fuck's sake.

"Maybe because I can't see a fucking thing?" McCoy reminds him a little sharply, sitting up and banging Jim's shoulder with his own in the process. "Besides, if I'm in fucking San Francisco then I can't get the gene therapy."

"Which you know I don't want you to do anyway, not the experimental procedures anyway," Jim says darkly. "But if you're in Starfleet then they'll pay for the treatment, I asked Pike. So you can have it done once it's been tested and we _know_ that it's not going to damage you any further."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"No, you're kidding yourself if you think you've got any reason to stay here," Jim says harshly, grabbing at his wrist, but McCoy twists it from his grip and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, his hands searching out for his clothes.

"I have friends, Jim," he spits. "And responsibility, and a possibility to get my sight back within a year. Plus if I play my cards right, Joanna. None of which I expect you to understand."

There's an odd sound, almost like a growl from behind him, and he feels the bed shift as he pulls on a pair of pants that might or might not be his.

"Just think about it, Bones," Jim says and it's almost pleading, so McCoy half-turns back to him with a scowl as he pulls on a shirt and boots.

"I've thought about it, and I'm saying that I'm staying right here. There's not a chance in hell you're getting me up in space, so just drop it, okay?"

"So what, you're just going to walk out on me?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do," McCoy snaps, bending to feel for his bag and swinging it over his shoulder. It should bother him that he knows Jim's place well enough that he barely has to touch the walls to orientate himself, but he pushes the thought away and silently fumes as he walks out.

He doesn't slam the door, just closes it with a firm click, and pretends not to hear the frustrated sigh from the other side.

* * *

McCoy does, in fact think about it all the way on his angry trudge back to his own apartment, which he hasn't stepped foot in since April and which he probably shouldn't be making alone in the early hours of the morning but by now he's beyond caring. How the hell can Jim accuse him of making irresponsible decisions about his eyesight when two months later, he's going and signing them both up for fucking Starfleet without even discussing it with him.

McCoy grumbles to himself as he navigates across Hollywood Boulevard and wonders why it is that they seem to spend a good half of their time arguing. He never disagreed with Jocelyn this much, that's for sure. And while McCoy knows that he's not completely exempt from the blame, Jim always finds a way to turn a simple discussion into a fucking fight when there's no need to.

But then again, that doesn't mean that Jim's wrong.

* * *

"Computer, lights to one hundred percent," he says roughly as he throws a duffel bag at Jim, who wakes with an undignified snort as a duffel bag is thrown into his stomach. "Pack your bags. Now."

"What the hell, Bones!" Jim protests, sounding a bizarre mix of confused and angry and strangely hopeful. "What are you doing?"

"Get your lazy ass out of bed, we've got one hour to be at that shuttle and I have no intention of letting you skip out on the one opportunity you've got to make something of your life. We're going to fucking Starfleet."

* * *

"I may throw up on you," he says flatly, and Jim's hand finds his in the darkness of the shuttle.


	5. epilogue

**_August 2256_**

_

* * *

  
_

McCoy checks the time quickly before leaning his head back, administering a few drops from the bottle onto each eye, and then picking up the analgesic hypospray from the counter. It's just part of his everyday life, now – meds, painkillers, constant check-ups and reporting to his Head of Department. It's tiring but it's worth it, and he leaves the bathroom to walk straight into Jim, who's been lurking just outside the door.

"I thought I told you not to get under my feet," he grouches but Jim just pulls him into a kiss, and McCoy can feel his grin against his lips.

"Come on," Jim says as he pulls away, stepping towards the door. "She'll be waiting."

* * *

She is waiting, as it happens, because it's five minutes past two and Jocelyn is nothing if not punctual about where and when her daughter will be.

McCoy knows that she'll be sat on a bench beside the fountain in the main square beside some poor ensign who's been stuck with babysitting duty, and she'll have her little purple suitcase and her backpack on the floor beside her. And as they step out into the courtyard, there's a deafening shriek and the sound of pattering feet before they've even cleared the steps.

"Daddy!" Jo squeals as she runs up to him, and he bends down to be at her height as she hurtles into his arms, holding her tightly and burying his face into her straight brown hair.

"Hey there darling. You look gorgeous," he says.

And she does, and Jim is blindingly bright beside him as they walk out across the campus.

* * *

**_end_**


End file.
